Future Aircraft Carrier

Lord Astor of Hever: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What are the in-service dates of the two future aircraft carriers (CVF).

Lord Drayson: My Lords, our 1998 Strategic Defence Review identified a requirement to replace the three existing carriers with two larger carriers. The Government remain committed to providing this capability. However, in-service dates cannot be set until the main investment decision, at which point we can commit to manufacture within defined time, cost and performance parameters. Work continues to mature the design, address risks and refine costs to the point at which that decision can sensibly be taken.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am very disappointed with that reply. I expected more than a rehash of "official-speak" waffle. After seven years these carriers are still no more than drawing board concepts. The Minister's right honourable friend Adam Ingram admitted in the other place last Friday that the Government still have no,
	"proper understanding of the costs involved".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/05; col. 854W.]
	Will the Minister now get a grip on this crucial project? As our existing carriers are due to be phased out in 2012 and 2015, are the in-service dates for the new carriers still 2012 and 2015, and, if not, what are the contingency plans to fill the gap?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the fact that I am not prepared to state an in-service date does not mean that I do not have a grip on the project. I assure the House that I have a very firm grip on the project. The reason I am not prepared to state an in-service date is that we are in discussions with the companies that will be building these carriers on the details of the way in which they will be built, the costs and the time-scale thereof. While we are in those discussions, and until we have a signed contract with those companies, it would be very unwise of the Government to commit themselves to dates or costs. However, the Government are committed to ensuring that these carriers are delivered in a way which meets the out-of-service dates of our existing carriers, that that is managed well and is done on a value for money basis.

Lord Garden: My Lords, having listened to the noble Lord—

Lord Hoyle: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, there is plenty of time for both noble Lords. They should make up their minds which one will speak first.

Lord Garden: My Lords, having heard the Minister give evidence to the Defence Select Committee three weeks ago, I congratulate him on taking a grip on this programme, which has been a shambles for the past seven years. However, while he may be able to do the risk reduction exercise for the shipbuilding elements, over which he has a degree of control, how will he do it for the Joint Strike Fighter, over which he has so little control and where we have to leave it to the Americans to decide when they will give it to us, what it will be like and how much it will cost?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am pleased to see the enthusiasm of noble Lords on all sides of the House to grill me on this very important and exciting project. I thank the noble Lord for his comments. He is right that the delivery of the carrier strike capability depends on both the delivery of the aircraft carriers and the aircraft thereof. We are working with the United States on the JSF project. We are looking for the STOVL variant of the JSF to be delivered to meet our carrier strike capability. We have plans in place to manage the interface between the two well. I am confident that the plans we have in place will enable us to deliver an effective carrier strike capability.

Lord Hoyle: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Garden, and I have sorted out our little difference. I bowed to seniority—in rank, of course, nothing else. What effect will this uncertainty have on vessels being withdrawn from service and on the programme?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I stress that there is no uncertainty about this programme. I am committed to delivering this important capability that the Navy needs, to do it in a time-scale that meets the requirements for the out-of-service dates of existing carriers and to ensure that the two dovetail well together. I am also well aware of the importance of the carrier projects to our maritime industry. The fact that the carriers are so large and so complex means that all aspects of our current manufacturing capability need to be employed to deliver the carriers. The department is committed to delivering a strategy by Christmas that sets out how that will be done, which will ensure that the two are managed well together.

Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, does the Minister recall that his predecessor gave this House dates of 2012 and 2015? Clearly those dates will not now be met. Does the Minister therefore regret that the Sea Harrier force, which provides much capability for the Navy, has been withdrawn, and that the Navy will be without such capabilities for a considerably longer period?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord is right. I have noted that the department has in the past stated target in-service dates; but it is important for the department to be clear both with industry and internally where it has committed to a date. We need to ensure that the disciplines are in place to improve delivery to target in terms of cost and time. Therefore, having any flexibility about what is or what is not an in-service date with a contractual link to the industries that will deliver the projects is vital.
	Regarding the Sea Harrier, we have plans in place to provide sufficient defences for our carrier strike capability. They are being provided by the new forces that will replace the Sea Harrier, and are coherent with the capabilities that we are developing as the total carrier strike capability is developed over the next 10 years.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, on the last occasion when this issue arose, I asked whether they would be built in British yards. What is the position on that?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the plans are for the carriers to be built in British yards.

Lord Stewartby: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on having taken a grip on this project; he is the first person to have done so for a very long time. Can he give us his latest estimate of the out-of-service date of the current carriers? He has assured us that there will not be a gap.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the planned out-of-service date for the current carriers is in the timescale of 2012–13.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, is the Minister certain that the JSF STOVL version will be available?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am learning that nothing is certain in this job. However, the importance of the STOVL variant to our ability to develop the carrier strike capability in the way that we want cannot be overemphasised. The STOVL capability is central to our carrier strike plans, and that is the basis on which we are going forward.

Iraq: Sanctions

Lord Campbell-Savours: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether the Attorney-General will initiate proceedings against the Weir Group in connection with sanctions against Iraq.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, the prosecution authorities in England and Scotland are reviewing the information on allegations against the Weir Group in connection with the UN's Iraq Oil for Food programme, such as those contained in the final report of the independent inquiry committee published on 27 October 2005. It would not be appropriate to speculate about any course of action that may follow such consideration.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, is it not true that sanctions against Iraq miserably failed because companies such as the Weir Group were propping up the Saddam Hussein regime with backhanders that enabled him to pay his army and also to maintain his regime based on violence? Is it not also true that if sanctions had been allowed properly to work, there would have been no war? There would have been no military intervention, and thousands of lives would have been saved. I put it to my noble and learned friend that the company has blood on its hands.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I certainly would not assent to that at this stage in the consideration of the allegations that have been made. The Weir Group itself first volunteered information about what it had discovered.

Lord Campbell-Savours: It only volunteered when it had to, my Lords.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, let us wait for the consideration to take place. As to the programme itself, the Iraq Survey Group reported in 2004 that sanctions had been successful in curbing Iraq's ability to import weapons and technology. The Oil for Food programme also succeeded in providing basic standards of nutrition and health to the Iraqi people. This country worked hard to bring about more comprehensive compliance with the programme, as the report recognises. The circumstances in which military action was taken have been well discussed over the past years, including many times in this House, but I do not agree with the proposition that my noble friend put.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, are the Government thinking more broadly about the implications for sanctions regimes in the light of the Volcker report? If I understand the report correctly more than half the companies involved in the transactions, from a range of different countries, were caught up in paying additional fees back to the Iraqi regime. If that is the nature and structure of a sanctions regime, ought we to be contributing to a broader inquiry into how future sanctions regimes should be managed?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point about learning the lessons from all the episodes and considering their implications for the present and the future.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General assure the House, leaving aside any details of the case referred to in the Question, that no prosecutions are brought under his aegis unless they comply with the code for crown prosecutors, which means that there must be a sufficiency of credible evidence to give rise to a realistic prospect of conviction and that prosecution must be in the public interest? Is he aware that some recent cases have caused concern on the issue?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, on the noble and learned Lord's first question, absolutely. So far as all prosecutions in England and Wales are concerned, it is essential that prosecutors judge objectively the evidence and satisfy themselves that it is sufficient—as he says, that there is a realistic prospect of conviction—and that it is in the public interest to prosecute. Of course, that does not mean that all prosecutions that will be brought succeed. If we only prosecuted cases that were certain to succeed, there would be many people on the streets who had committed offences and got away with them. The fact that a case does not succeed does not mean that it was not right to bring the prosecution. I do not know precisely which case the noble and learned Lord has in mind; one relating to the Army has been referred to recently in which the Judge Advocate General, who decided the case, made it absolutely plain in his judgment that it was right to bring the prosecution because of the serious allegations made. There were other criticisms, which are being looked at, as the House knows.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that it is hypocritical to castigate governments in foreign countries for corruption if we do not put our own house in order? If so, on the basis that Kofi Annan said that there was an immediate need for national authorities to investigate their companies, can he tell us what investigations there are of the other eight British companies named in the Volcker report?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, my noble friend has been a strong supporter of the OECD regime, and I understand entirely the basis on which she puts her question. As I said in my Answer, the authorities in England and Scotland are reviewing the findings of all allegations that may affect companies or individuals in both countries. I agree that we have to make a strong stand in relation to corruption. I am pleased to say that the Serious Fraud Office has now taken a lead role in relation to overseas corruption cases and has dedicated resources to that end.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend accept that while it is true that the company went to the DTI to volunteer information, it did so only when it knew that the Americans were to hold an inquiry that would identify it?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I cannot confirm that. The Volcker report itself notes that a press release was issued by the company announcing that it had conducted an internal review of its programme contracts and had learnt certain things which it then set out in the press release. It is not for me to speculate as to what, if any, motivation was behind that.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is of course proper that all allegations should be investigated and I am glad to hear that that is the noble and learned Lord's view. But does this not arise from Mr Volcker's UN special inquiry in which more than 2,000 firms were named, with varying degrees of allegation attached to them, and a string of politicians and officials in a number of countries? Does that not tell us that the Oil for Food programme, which many well intentioned people over the years were urging us to expand on the grounds that it would provide more help to the people of Iraq, in fact turned out to be, tragically, an "oil for kickbacks" programme, which was not helping the poor people of Iraq much at all? Is there not a big lesson for the administration of all humanitarian programmes, especially UN programmes, that should be taken to heart?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord would expect me to adopt his language; I can say that it is plainly regrettable that sanctions were not able to bring about more comprehensive compliance by Saddam Hussein. I have made the point that that was not due to any lack of effort on behalf of this country. We take the allegations in the report very seriously and that is why we are reviewing them. Obviously, we hope that other countries will take those allegations seriously and review them, too, where they concern their own companies and individuals.

HIV/AIDS

Lord Fowler: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress they are making towards preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in the United Kingdom.

Lord Warner: My Lords, government measures to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS were set out in the public health White Paper Choosing Health, published last November. These included a new, high-profile national campaign to promote safer sex messages, aimed at reducing the prevalence and spread of all sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.
	A key aim of our strategy is the reduction in the number of HIV-positive people unaware of their condition, and this is happening. The Government are also carrying out targeted work with key high-risk groups such as gay men and African communities. This year, £1.6 million is being invested specifically targeting these groups, working closely with the Terrence Higgins Trust and the African HIV Policy Network.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. He will be aware of a case, widely reported at the weekend, where one man claimed to have been cured of HIV/AIDS. Will the Minister reiterate that whatever the truth is in that particular case, the best advice firmly remains that there is neither a cure nor a vaccine for AIDS, and that the best hope of preventing the spread of the virus is in public education, which places a great responsibility on the Government?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I understand that the full details of the very unusual case that the noble Lord mentioned are unclear. What he says is absolutely right and we take our public education responsibilities in this area seriously, as I tried to indicate in the Answer. I pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord has carried out on this issue over a long period of time.

Baroness Tonge: My Lords, while endorsing the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that there is no cure for AIDS—and many young people in this country now think that there is—the Government have displayed a certain amount of complacency on this issue over the past eight years. Why is there little mention of the subject in the public health White Paper, because this is a public health issue? Why is it that vulnerable groups, particularly failed asylum seekers, now have to pay for treatment for AIDS and intercurrent infections? Is that not a very false economy indeed, when they can still spread AIDS infections throughout the community?

Lord Warner: My Lords, on that last point, the policy on charging overseas visitors for HIV treatment has been the same ever since the appropriate regulations were introduced in 1989. The initial diagnostic testing for HIV/AIDS and any associated counselling is free to all, but should a test prove positive, subsequent treatment, including drug therapy, is not. That is the position on charging.
	I shall not go through a long list of what the Government have done, but I refute what the noble Baroness has said about complacency. The UK has a relatively low HIV prevalence compared with other EU countries as a result of sustained public education and health promotion campaigns, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, what progress is being made in the development of microbicides, which we have been told may produce a great way of preventing the spread of the disease and on which I know research is being carried out in this country? Is any progress being made in the production of microbicides?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I believe that progress is being made, but rather than speculate on that, I shall look into the matter in more detail and write to the noble Baroness.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, are there any plans to test those who come from abroad and who wish to live within our shores?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we already have good arrangements for screening people, when appropriate, and we are making good progress in targeting those areas.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, do the Government really want to put the lives of unborn babies at risk? I can hardly believe that they do. Is the Minister aware that midwives and physicians are becoming increasingly concerned that the new charging system introduced in April 2004 is acting as a deterrent to anti-retroviral treatment being given to HIV-positive pregnant women?

Lord Warner: My Lords, my understanding was that antenatal HIV screening has been one of our success stories. We have significantly reduced the mother-to-baby transmission of HIV. I shall certainly look into that and write to the noble Baroness.

Lord Colwyn: My Lords, does the Minister agree that conventional therapy uses toxic chemical weapons against the virus that may eventually fail by allowing the emergence of resistant strains? Are not long-term survival and prevention dependent on a healthy lifestyle and the use of therapies to support inherent healing systems?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I do not share the noble Lord's description of some of the well tried and tested therapies that are being applied, but I certainly support the idea that safer sex and healthy lifestyles will improve the situation.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, what arrangements are there for ensuring that information is available to patients attending GP surgeries and outpatient clinics in hospitals?

Lord Warner: My Lords, from my own experience and from the experience of others, I know that a wide variety of information is available in GP surgeries on a wide range of issues, including these matters.

Civil Servants: Publication of Memoirs

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What guidance is given to recently retired civil servants regarding the publication of memoirs relating to their period of service.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, rules for civil servants on the publication of memoirs relating to their experience in government are set out in the Civil Service Codes of Conduct.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the publication of Sir Christopher Meyer's memoirs—DC Confidential—represents a serious breach of confidence which now makes his position as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission entirely untenable? As trust between Ministers and civil servants is vital for good government, will he and his colleagues now review and enforce the rules for both civil servants and Ministers?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my noble friend makes very valid points. He is absolutely right. We firmly take the view that former civil servants must continue to observe their duties of confidentiality after they have left Crown employment. I am sure that that view is shared across your Lordships' House.

Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be deeply regrettable and damaging to the conduct of public business if the effect of the deplorable publication of Sir Christopher Meyer's memoirs were to reduce even further the reliance of Ministers on professional advice, on confidentiality, on discretion and on the trust of public servants, whether from the Home Civil Service or from the Diplomatic Service?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I welcome the comments of the noble Lord, speaking as he does with vast experience. Those sentiments are well understood. It would be extremely regrettable. Trust and the ability to rely on things said in confidence in a private place are important in the conduct of good government.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, is it the Government's policy to extend the rules and guidance to the spouses of senior Ministers? I ask because, in respect of the book that has already been mentioned, the Foreign Secretary expressed outrage on the radio at the references to the state of undress of former Prime Minister Sir John Major in briefings. I recall that the first time I read such references, including a quote from the then-Mr Christopher Meyer, was on page 252 of The Goldfish Bowl, the author of which was a certain Cherie Booth.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the page reference. I shall look it up and read it with even greater interest than I would have previously. Clearly, what people say in their biographies, autobiographies and so on is a matter for them. We would do well to reflect on the need for quiet reflection and confidentiality in what we reveal about ourselves.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: My Lords, at what level in the Civil Service were these memoirs cleared for publication?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it would be wrong to say that they were cleared. The book was referred by its publishers to the Secretary of the Cabinet, Sir Gus O'Donnell, and in reply, he wrote:
	"I am grateful for the opportunity to have had a chance to offer comments on the proposed book and can confirm . . . that the Government has no comments to make on the proposed book. However, I have to admit to being disappointed that a former diplomat should disclose confidences gained as a result of his employment".
	He makes this important point:
	"More generally, as I am sure you will appreciate, it is not my responsibility to check whether the remarks attributed to individuals are accurate and complete, and you should not therefore imply from this response that the book has any form of official or unofficial approval".
	Those words are well meant.

Lord McNally: My Lords, on the other part of the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, if the noble Lord, Lord Currie of Marylebone, the chairman of Ofcom, was found to be trying to sell a television programme to television companies, his resignation would quickly be asked for. Is it appropriate that the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission should go hawking his memoirs around Fleet Street? Does that not confirm that the Press Complaints Commission is really a sweetheart club for newspaper owners?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord has made the second of those important points on a number of occasions. I know that it is a view shared by many people. In respect of the noble Lord's comments about the juxtapositioning of Sir Christopher Meyer's position and the revelations in DC Confidential, I agree that they sit strangely at odds with each other.

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster: My Lords, I associate myself with what my noble friend Lord Wright said on this matter. There can be no possible right for civil servants or diplomats to publish information about the former Prime Minister's shirt tails. Indeed, there can be no public right to know about such matters, which are irrelevant to a Minister's conduct as a Minister.
	Will the Minister refresh his memory of the Radcliffe report on ministerial memoirs? The report is now some years old, but its recommendations are as relevant now as they were then. They are for a requirement on Ministers—and I think there should be a similar requirement on civil servants—to sign an acceptance of the recommendations in the report and to observe them; that is, to accept deletions or amendments proposed on grounds of national security, of international relations and, within 15 years of leaving office, of breaches of confidence.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the Radcliffe rules were an important contribution. The most important thing that they make plain is that those who have been involved in public life should refrain from publishing information destructive of confidential relationships with Ministers, each other and officials generally. That is an important rule of which we should all take note. Those who have been in the Civil Service or the Diplomatic Service should also take careful note.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, anything which could—

Lord Goodlad: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservatives.

Lord Goodlad: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House about the applicability of the Freedom of Information Act to such memoirs after being subjected to vetting, but prior to publication?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord asks a question that raises a number of other issues on which I should like to reflect. He makes an interesting point. I shall write to the noble Lord and of course share the contents of that correspondence with your Lordships' House.

Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Business of the House: Debates this Day

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Lord Freeman and the Lord Fowler set down for today shall each be limited to two and a half hours.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Commonwealth

Lord Freeman: rose to call attention to the United Kingdom's relations with the Commonwealth; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I am delighted to be able to open this important debate. I and many other noble Lords are strong supporters of the Commonwealth. We have today a very impressive list of speakers from all sides of the House, and I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, the Leader of the House, for agreeing to wind up the debate. Given her knowledge and long experience of overseas affairs, particularly of international development, your Lordships will benefit greatly from her contribution.
	Many noble Lords will have visited many countries in the Commonwealth. Some will, like myself, have family ties in those countries or have had ministerial responsibilities there, so this debate augers well for contributions based on experience. I hope that the conclusion of the debate will show that this House very strongly supports the Commonwealth and looks forward to it thriving in the future.
	This debate is particularly timely because next week in Malta there will be the biennial meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government (CHOGM). I hope very much that the comments made in the debate will be distilled by the noble Baroness and conveyed to colleagues who will be going to Malta.
	First, I wish to reinforce the obvious: the Commonwealth is a unique institution. The Statute of Westminster in 1931 established the Commonwealth, but it was directly after the war that it grew in size. Today it contains 53 member countries together with 11 territories. I wish to return briefly in a moment to the issue of the territories, which are often forgotten in debates on the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has 30 per cent of the world's population, 40 per cent of the World Trade Organisation's members and 25 per cent of world trade and investment.
	Why is the Commonwealth unique? It is unique because it contains both developed and developing countries and therefore is wholly unlike the European Union. The Commonwealth contains 13 of the fastest growing nations in the world and 14 of the poorest. So it has the complete gamut in terms of economic wealth and performance. It is bound by, by and large, a common language. English, if not the native language, is the first foreign language of preference. Although Her Majesty's Government contribute some 30 per cent of the costs of the Commonwealth, we have one voice and all the other members are equal.
	That is certainly unlike the United Nations, which is a pyramidical structure dominated in its debates and decisions by the larger countries, and especially those on the Security Council. It is multi-faith—I shall return to that issue in due course—but, most importantly, it is built on democratic principles: parliamentary government, the rule of law and respect for all citizens, of whatever religion or race. There is the principle of tolerance and understanding of the points of view and beliefs of every citizen in the Commonwealth. No other world grouping of nations comes close to the Commonwealth. One sometimes thinks great nations such as the United States and our neighbours in the European Union envy the United Kingdom's position in the Commonwealth and the influence that it can bring to bear.
	However, this nation is in danger of missing a great opportunity to continue to champion the Commonwealth. There is a generation gap in understanding of the Commonwealth. How many of our children and grandchildren have the same interest in approach to our knowledge of the Commonwealth as the over-60s? I cast my eye around your Lordships' Chamber and believe that most, if not all, of us have been brought up with the Commonwealth. That does not go for the generations behind us. Indeed, my children's generation often connect the Commonwealth more with cricket than with issues of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. So we have a duty—this House has a duty—to champion the Commonwealth.
	What can we do, what should we do to nurture and support the future of the Commonwealth? I commend to your Lordships the 2005 report by the Commonwealth Secretariat as a starting point. It is an excellent report and describes the broad range of initiatives, many of which have been championed and, indeed, initiated by Her Majesty's Government, that are being pursued at present. In the time available to me, I want to cover three aspects mentioned in the report that should be developed further and make some suggestions about them.
	The first aspect is upholding democracy, the rule of law and the equal treatment of citizens. The Commonwealth has taken a tough stance in the past and expelled or suspended members that are clearly not adhering to those principles—South Africa, on the issue of apartheid, Nigeria and Pakistan. All three of those countries have since rejoined the Commonwealth. Zimbabwe was suspended and later withdrew from the Commonwealth. Pressure has been brought to bear in the past and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will pursue a resolute line on Zimbabwe on behalf of the whole of the Commonwealth. I know that some of my noble friends will pursue that issue with greater experience than I, but with equal force.
	We should not forget that one important method of pursuing the principles of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law is the quiet persuasion and diplomacy that goes on within the Commonwealth. That is unlike the United Nations, the European Union and other groupings of nations. The Prime Ministers and leaders of individual nations talk to each other, bring pressure to bear and resolve conflicts. That has been very successful in the past.
	I make one plea, and I know that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) shares this view. I pay tribute to the work that the CPA has done—not only the UK branch but the association throughout the Commonwealth. More parliamentary support from your Lordships is needed. Some of our delegations abroad need to be strengthened. Indeed, some visits have been cancelled in recent years. We should not forget our obligation as legislators, as parliamentarians, to support the CPA.
	I believe strongly in the secondment of some of our judges and barristers to courts within the Commonwealth where that is requested. I think especially of Sierra Leone, where I judge there to be a real requirement for support from some of our judges to go to sit in the courts there, especially to help in the matter of corruption. There is a common fund for technical co-operation, run by the Commonwealth, which covers public administration. I should like to see greater use of that fund made in seconding some of our judges.
	A further initiative could be for Commonwealth citizens—young people graduating from United Kingdom universities, especially those from Africa and the Caribbean, particularly those who have studied law, history or politics—to offer to return to their native countries in the Commonwealth to help with the process of better governance. Sometimes, the elite who come to study in this country from the Commonwealth, although idealistic and anxious to provide for themselves and their families, have an obligation to provide for their country of birth and origin more advice and more effort. Within the ambit of funds presently available to the Commonwealth Secretariat, I would like to see the creation of Commonwealth fellows for graduates, perhaps trialled for just one year, the fortunate few returning to help the unfortunate many.
	Secondly, I wish to comment on economic issues. I point out the obvious when I say that there is a great heritage within the Commonwealth of common English based on English antecedence, common commercial law and common financial law. At CHOGM in Malta, I would like to see agreement to take to the World Trade Organisation, which will meet in Hong Kong in December, a very clear message that trade barriers must come down. I think that most of your Lordships believe in the principle of free trade. The real devil is in the detail: the transitional provisions to allow developing and developed countries to benefit from greater free trade. The United Kingdom has long, hard, practical experience in negotiating in such matters, and I hope that we will take a lead.
	Thirdly, I would like to see the private finance initiative—the principles that we have learnt and operated for the past decade in this country—transported to some countries in the Commonwealth, particularly as regards infrastructure. The very excellent report Business Environment Survey 2005, published by the Commonwealth Business Council, said that the private sector in this country viewed the lack of good infrastructure—I mean, principally roads—as a major impediment for investment in developing countries, particularly in Africa. I would like to see British construction companies using the PFI principle, building some of the roads using local labour and, rather like the Birmingham Northern Relief Road—one of the first toll roads to be built in this country for many years—for them to be repaid through government aid or through the revenues of the developing nations over perhaps 20 or 30 years.
	Good road transportation brings agricultural produce to the ports. It helps with education, health, security and, above all, employment of local labour. In northern Uganda and Sierra Leone there are great problems with young people who have been caught up in conflict, have no job and are waiting for some form of constructive employment. Unless individual nations do something quickly about their predicament, there will be future trouble.
	I know that my noble friend Lady Hooper, who wishes to contribute to this debate but may not be able to do so owing to other pressures, wanted to raise tertiary education for young people coming from Commonwealth territories. They have no tertiary education. I believe that my noble friend is right to argue for relief on tuition fees for people coming from those territories.
	Finally, the good education of youngsters in the Commonwealth, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean, leads to greater racial and religious understanding. I was interested that Kofi Annan was reported to have said in Tunis yesterday that he would like to see greater export of information technology, particularly computers, to some of the poorer countries. Nowadays young people learn by using the world wide web and communicate through the Internet. We are wasting a great opportunity in this country. How many noble Lords change their own laptops every two or three years, and even those in the Houses of Parliament? What happens to the second-hand computers? Nothing. We could export to the Commonwealth an enormous wealth of equipment at a much lower cost than that for new equipment. I congratulate the Council for Education in the Commonwealth on pioneering the idea, as well as on its work, particularly in Sierra Leone.
	I conclude by repeating that I am a strong supporter of the Commonwealth. It is a force for good. I have made some modest proposals for further improvement. I hope that the Minister will convey from this House to the meeting in Malta the strong support it maintains for the Commonwealth. Long may it thrive.

Lord Desai: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for choosing this topic for debate. His choice is timely in the light of the Malta CHOGM conference to be held shortly. I want to speak briefly on three or four issues.
	First, I strongly agree with the noble Lord on the importance of education, in particular what the Centre for Commonwealth Education is going to do. The centre is the result of a commitment made at the last CHOGM. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, will talk about the difficulties surrounding the financing of the centre because of certain problems at the Commonwealth Institute. I shall leave that issue to him, but I flag up the likelihood that there will be problems sustaining the centre unless care is taken to do something about it right now.
	Secondly, I turn with sadness to the earthquake that has affected both sides of Kashmir and north-west Pakistan. It has been a severe and major disaster for the area. Relief operations are continuing and we have seen on our televisions how hard life there is going to be. The only matter I want to mention at this stage is that when the time comes to begin reconstruction, given that we now know how sensitive the region is to earthquakes, I hope that DfID and the other bodies concerned will take note and ensure that the new housing built there will be robust against such shocks in the future. Technology is available which can be used to build earthquake-proof houses. They should be used in the reconstruction effort, rather than build new stock which will fall down again. We should take care to utilise the latest and best technology.
	Like many other things, the earthquake has had one or two good consequences, one of which has been the opening up of the Line of Control between the Indian and the Pakistani sides of Kashmir. It is only an emergency measure, but help in the relief work has also been coming from India to Pakistan. If in some way encouragement can be given at the Malta conference to the governments of India and Pakistan to keep the Line of Control open and to increase the exchange of people across the two borders, those would be welcome steps. There has been a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan on the question of Kashmir. The Indian Government have been consulting groups based in Kashmir itself on the Indian side who have been fighting for an autonomous Kashmir. That, too, marks a big step forward.
	We need to sustain this improved relationship and do everything we can to increase the wealth of the people of Kashmir on both sides. I say that because the earthquake has demonstrated clearly that, whoever may be in the right in this dispute, the people of Kashmir are suffering. They have been neglected in terms of infrastructure, housing and so on and now is an opportunity for all of us to do much better. I hope that, without in any way interfering in the bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan in regard to a settlement of their disputes, we will do as much as we can to help that process along.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, quite rightly mentioned—I am summarising what he said—the Commonwealth is unique in that it is a global body. It is almost like a miniature, although better, version of the United Nations. This allows issues such as the millennium development goals to be pursued much more carefully and intensively at Commonwealth level than at the full United Nations level. I expect my noble friend will tell me from the Dispatch Box that attempts are made to monitor the progress of Commonwealth MDGs. We should have reports periodically from the Commonwealth on how well we are doing in that regard.
	The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, said that the Commonwealth shares cricket but that there are other things to share. I cannot say that there could be better things to share than cricket. Perhaps every CHOGM should coincide with a big cricket match between England and the rest of the world.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, we, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for introducing this debate, which foreshadows the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta next week.
	As the noble Lord pointed out, the theme of this year's CHOGM is designed to highlight the role of information technology in development. It comes at a particularly appropriate time, when one cannot underestimate the impact of the global digital revolution in transforming lives in developing countries and bringing knowledge to remote areas of the globe. Moreover, its impact on the smaller member states of the Commonwealth—the Pacific islands, which are remote even by modern standards of travel—is enormous in that it links their educational establishments to higher education centres through the Commonwealth of Learning.
	But—and there is always a "but" in technological advance—the role and use of technology will always be subservient to other, more essential, needs for many Commonwealth citizens, including the basic need for clean drinking water, for food and for drugs to inoculate against diseases that have been eradicated in the West for decades.
	This brings me to one of the substantial points that I wish to make in the debate today: the question that nearly 2 billion citizens of the Commonwealth expect the United Kingdom to answer as it holds the presidencies of the European Union and the G8. That question is how we can reconcile our rhetoric with our deeds—over poverty and development, on the one hand, and our failure to arrive at an EU position consistent with our rhetoric in this regard apropos the forthcoming WTO negotiations, on the other.
	We had the Prime Minister telling us as recently as the UN world summit in September that,
	"if we end up with a failure in December, that will echo right round the world, and I am not prepared to have that, at least without the most monumental struggle".
	While many on these Benches would applaud the Prime Minister's appetite for monumental struggles, most negotiators believe that persuasion is a more powerful tool to bring people round to your point of view.
	But "struggle" is where we are in many aspects of the UK's presidency. There is little question that the cost of failure in Hong Kong will impact severely on the many developing countries within the Commonwealth, where European agricultural protection takes such a heavy toll. We regret the failure of persuasion by the UK, over several years, whereby we have one country—France—holding out against the gains of billions of people to protect the interests of a few hundreds of thousands. We hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will be able to reassure us that we, alongside Malta and Cyprus—countries that have a special responsibility through their membership of the Commonwealth and the EU—will do their utmost to persuade the French Government to move further in offering cuts to farm tariffs.
	But Commonwealth leaders are right to look ahead in a positive manner at the Malta meeting. There are areas where the Commonwealth, due to its cohesion as a group, achieves far more than other intergovernmental organisations, as was said so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman. In its emphasis on agreeing fundamental political values through the Singapore and, unfortunately named, Harare declarations, the Commonwealth puts down a firm marker for its members of the standards of democracy and human rights to be expected of them. Many in this House might wish to see such minimum standards adopted at the United Nations.
	I should declare an interest here as I worked for the Commonwealth Secretariat from 1999 until 2003 and dealt with issues of governance, democracy and human rights. My period of service coincided with some of the more intractable problems in those regards—the military takeover in Pakistan and the rigging of elections in Zimbabwe, to note but two. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House will recall the energy and effort expended by Ministers in trying to resolve them. In Pakistan, it was to some extent pressure from the Commonwealth which brought about a transition to democracy. It is continuing vigilance on the part of the Commonwealth, which retains Pakistan on its ministerial "list" of transgressors, that secures its slow progress down the road towards full restoration of democracy.
	Zimbabwe, and its continued downward spiral, has more painful lessons for the international community as a whole. While its suspension and eventual departure from the Commonwealth on the one hand exposed the weakness of such sanctions that exist, many of us would argue that, on the other, the conviction of Commonwealth members in saying that it had no place at their table was indeed a sign of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe over its leaders. If its parting from the Commonwealth had no weight, why did its leaders try so hard to stay within the organisation?
	Any failure of member states to conform to the fundamental values of human rights and democracy is a failure for all. It is to the credit of the Commonwealth that it gains as much value-added from its work in conflict resolution and democracy-building as it does from its small budget. Where democracy is embedded into the constitutional structure and value system of nations, there is little need for external mediation of disputes or light-touch conflict resolution. However, where it is newly embraced and the tradition of political pluralism is fragile, the work needed to assist with the resolution of differences between the executive and the opposition can be critical to political stability. This is where much of the Commonwealth's best work takes place, with the Secretary-General's good offices role in anticipating where problems might arise and where disputes need to be mediated.
	Likewise, where peaceful transitions from government to opposition are part of the political culture, external election observers are merely symbolic. But where this practice is not fully embedded, an external endorsement that elections have represented the will of the people becomes critical to that country's future stability.
	There is much need for work in this area among Commonwealth members. One has only to look at the prospect for a peaceful election in Uganda to see how fragile political systems still are in many countries. Will the noble Baroness the Leader of the House be able to reassure us that the UK will continue to press for the forthcoming elections in Uganda to be conducted in an atmosphere free from intimidation, violence and manipulation of electoral law? Will the Government also pledge themselves to increased financial assistance in these vital areas of the work of the Commonwealth?
	In concluding, I will touch on the relevance of the Commonwealth in today's globalising world. But my question will be narrower: is the Commonwealth still relevant to the UK? Looking at the half-hearted approach of successive UK governments to the organisation, one is inclined to think that it is less and less so. We started some 60 years ago from Churchill's concentric circles of the US-UK special relationship overlapping with the UK's relations with the EU overlapping with the special role of the UK in the Commonwealth. We have moved far from those overlapping interests to a policy which can at best be described as indifferent.
	So we cannot fight our friends' corner at the WTO; nor are we ready to pursue reform of the United Nations Security Council in the interests of our partners from within the Commonwealth. Ultimately, our energy in foreign policy seems dedicated to complying with the wishes of the one superpower in a uni-polar world.
	Those in the Commonwealth who have witnessed this gradual change in the desire of the UK to be an active player in the Commonwealth must consider these changes too. I believe that the Commonwealth is indeed relevant, particularly to those smaller states which do not play a role on the international stage and which value the practical work done by the Commonwealth in their interests. Perhaps the FCO might be induced to review its long-term approach towards its Commonwealth partners in the light of its strategic goals and conclude that it needs a change of tack. We on these Benches await such a review and the more positive role that might emerge from that.

Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, the topic chosen by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, is most welcome and well timed.
	Last Sunday, I was in Lesotho, so I attended the Armistice Day service in the capital, Maseru. It was a very moving open-air ceremony. Following a two-minute silence, wreaths were laid at the impressive war memorial by their Majesties the King and Queen, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the mayor of Maseru, the doyen of the diplomatic corps in Lesotho the Libyan ambassador, the High Commissioner for South Africa, the Chinese ambassador, the acting US ambassador, the so-called EU ambassador, and by consular representatives from Ireland, France, the United Nations, the African Union, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, in that order. One of the many veterans present was the last to lay a wreath. It was touching to see that he had a small Union Jack flag flying from his black beret.
	There were at least 150 veterans prominently seated near the memorial, some wearing their old uniforms. Some 1,400 hundred Basotho soldiers served in World War I and well over 21,000 in World War II. Following the withdrawal of the UK High Commissioner, surely Her Majesty's Government should still arrange a formal UK presence at this and similar annual services.
	I was in Maseru to attend a CPTM dialogue, an annual event that alternates usually between an African country and Malaysia. CPTM— the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management—was set up a decade ago by CHOGM. It has a small headquarters, or hub, here in London. Apart from some funding to support the hub, CPTM works on a give-and-take networking basis, with members drawn from all corners of the world, contributing advice and ideas to others to help them with their activities.
	Membership is widely drawn, not only from many different countries within the Commonwealth and some beyond the Commonwealth, but also from government, the private sector, labour, academia and the media. This Government gave £60,000 per annum at the start of their Administration, but no longer do so. An uncertain revenue stream for CPTM led to a decision two years ago to seek to raise a sum of around £11 million to provide a permanent home for the CPTM hub and a sufficient annual income to run it. A very commendable sum of around £5.4 million is now in CPTM's capital account and a further £1 million is pledged—all very creditable. A contribution from Her Majesty's Government would now be most welcome.
	At CHOGM 03, the Commonwealth Secretary-General was tasked to consider the roles of CPTM and CBC, the Commonwealth Business Council. He is reporting to CHOGM 05 that CPTM continues to enjoy success and has solid support from those who work with it, including a number of Commonwealth member governments. It has a distinct and positive role to play in the family of Commonwealth organisations and should continue, he says, its important and valued work.
	What, then, does CPTM do? Let me, in the time available, give just two examples of changes in southern Africa and elsewhere which have had their origins in the process of dialoguing. In 1997, the dialogue was hosted by Botswana. The concept of peace parks—areas which cross national borders and assist in the management of wildlife and the advancement of tourism, for example—was first discussed. This has now blossomed. There are 169 peace parks in 113 countries in Africa and Asia.
	A 1999 dialogue at Victoria Falls discussed the problems that tourists met when national requirements for visas complicated movement in southern Africa. Wild animals do not observe national boundaries, yet are one of the many exciting reasons for a visit to Africa. A freer regime for immigration control is now in place. Such changes achieve a win-win outcome which is of benefit to all. A driving idea behind the dialogues and the work of CPTM is to seek ways of being fair and benefiting all parties involved. Rather than winner-take-all, it is a prosper-my-neighbour approach. CPTM espouses these ideals in the phrase "smart partnership".
	Although CPTM assists, it falls to the hosting country to draw up the guest list and to make the many arrangements required to run a three or four-day dialogue attended by 500 or more people. For Lesotho this year as for many others it is a major challenge requiring a great deal of time and effort. Woven into the formal arrangements are opportunities for attendees to see and appreciate the mix of business, cultural and artistic talents of the hosting nation and its region. All involved deserve great credit for what they achieve.
	One of many significant features of dialogues is the attendance of heads of state or government and former heads who have been attracted by smart partnership. From Commonwealth countries last week we had the presidents of Namibia and Mozambique; the new Deputy President of South Africa; a number of Commonwealth prime ministers including Prime Minister Badawi from Malaysia; former heads including President Sir Ketumile Masire, President Chissano and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir. All individually and collectively play a very active part, mixing freely with all others at the dialogue. It is a unique opportunity for them to meet, listen and participate in the discussions that form the central part of every dialogue. There is also a so-called Club 29, made up of younger smart partners, who make their own challenging contributions in the dialogue sessions. PFI, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, was also discussed last week.
	Between dialogues, CPTM will assist in work of national interest in a variety of Commonwealth countries. For example, Lesotho's Vision 2020 was drawn up with help from CPTM members in a number of other countries. President Museveni of Uganda is another very supportive partner. He was not in Maseru, but I met him two weeks ago here at the CPTM hub. He will bring the importance of CPTM to the attention of heads at CHOGM next week in Malta. There is great value in CPTM for developing countries of the Commonwealth. It deserves to be given the essential financial support to keep it going and to allow it to spread its smart partnership message for the good of the Commonwealth.

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I echo the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for introducing this debate. We should emphasise that the Commonwealth is an extraordinary resource for the United Kingdom. It hugely enriches our experience in many areas of life. It is the envy of many European countries, particularly in the university world. In the world of science, engineering and industry, the UK gains enormously from the Commonwealth, including the new Commonwealth. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century is Ramanujan from India. When I was at the Met Office, Professor Chan of Hong Kong University provided the key idea to improve the Met Office's forecasts of tropical cyclones, which, as I have mentioned before in this Chamber, was the most accurate forecast of Hurricane Katrina.
	We need to understand and appreciate the Commonwealth more. Culture is, of course, a remarkable dimension of that, and we now have bestseller novels and films coming from all over the Commonwealth. One is very pleased to see them coming from Africa as well as from south Asia. But I believe that we need to strengthen further our links with Commonwealth countries, strengthen institutions and make better use of our existing arrangements. Perhaps because so much of the new Commonwealth was born out of struggle, it can help in the complex world to reduce misunderstandings.
	I have been privileged to see a little bit of how the Commonwealth emerged, as I enjoyed an exotic childhood in India, in the colonial era, with dancing cobras on the floor on Christmas day. I was present at Merdeka in Malaya in 1957, when the guerrilla war was still under way. The United Kingdom's deputy high commissioner was asked to play on his piano for the Tunku Abdul Rahman Benjamin Britten's submission for the national anthem in an international competition; you can imagine that Benjamin Britten's submission was characteristic but unsuitable, and Malaya decided instead to slow down a local dance tune, which is still the national anthem. The deputy high commissioner was my father.
	In the 1960s, I saw an interesting aspect of the development of independence, with the Ugandan army not always working correctly as that country was tormented by crises following independence.
	In my career as an academic, working at the Met Office and as president of an NGO, I have made many visits to Commonwealth countries—14 in all—and worked with many colleagues at universities here in the UK. I was in Accra last week in a conference on coastal zones of sub-Saharan Africa, where we were bringing together technical people, including scientists and local government people.
	I shall make a few specific points on which the Minister might comment in her reply. First, as I have said before in this Chamber, we have many visiting experts coming to the UK, some of them to provide information to us but some of them to learn from our institutions. I believe that we have an inadequate way of introducing them—in fact, we do not introduce them—to the culture and history aspects of the UK. They come here and have a technical and academic experience and then go away. Last week we heard about the tragic expert who came to the University of Reading, learned about explosives and automatic systems and was one of the people involved in the bad events in Indonesia.
	The United States does much more to introduce people to the whole aspect of that country. Even mathematicians and scientists are told about the constitution of America. I am afraid that there seems still to be a feeling in Britain that if you are a mathematician, when you come to Britain you should just stay in your lab. I should remind noble Lords that the current Prime Minister of Singapore is a mathematician who was trained in Cambridge—so mathematicians can be quite important!
	My second point arises from our meetings last week with mayors of cities in Ghana. They commented that twinning cities is a very valuable way in which to share experience. There are two cities in Ghana that are twinned with cities in the UK. The high commissioner there commented that the process of facilitating and improving that system may need further work; I hope that the DfID could do that, as it is certainly called for in those countries. The Minister of Tourism and Modernisation of the capital city in Ghana commented that the city of Accra has three town planning officers and that the city of London has many hundreds, while Amsterdam has 600. He believes that our town planning and local government experts could perhaps be seconded to help with the extremely complex issues which arise when dealing with the urban areas in Africa.
	Thirdly, in non-governmental organisations, networks are flourishing, but more help needs to be given. It is interesting that the Commonwealth is not exclusive—it works with other networks—and in Africa the NePAD network is beginning to help in working with Commonwealth initiatives. I believe that we need to work wherever there are appropriate local networks. Academic support was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, with regard to the role of computers, which is very important. It is a tragedy to see academic and technical institutions in Africa having almost no scientific literature provided, when libraries here are throwing that out and it is not being circulated. There are projects for that, but it still does not seem to be getting through.
	My noble friend Lord Desai talked about natural disasters, which, along with climate change, are an important area, and not only for future emergencies. One of the real causes of concern is shortages of food as the climate changes. UK government agencies can provide the expertise to help and they could do more, with encouragement from central government. There always seems to be a budgetary problem in Whitehall about that. We have seen the RAF doing excellent work in India, but I believe that our government agencies could be encouraged more.
	Finally, I have a political question for the Minister that has not been raised: what are the rules for joining and leaving the Commonwealth? Mozambique is now in the Commonwealth, but I believe that Hong Kong is not. In fact, when I was at the Met Office, there was the interesting business of ensuring that Hong Kong remained as an independent member of many of the UN agencies. It is hosting the World Trade Organisation because it is in the World Meteorological Organisation. I believe it is no longer in the Commonwealth, however, and that affects people in their eligibility for arrangements in the UK. Do we have an arrangement for those countries that, for special reasons, leave the Commonwealth, so that they have some associate category? That may be important.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I join those who have spoken in thanking my noble friend Lord Freeman for giving us this opportunity. I decline, if I may, the opportunity to answer the question just posed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, but I follow his example with a little reminiscence about one's own associations with the Commonwealth. Mine go back, I am afraid, to when I was nine years old.
	Like all those who attended Sunday school at Carmel chapel in Aberavon, I was given a card with a message from His Majesty King George V on his Silver Jubilee. I still have it, although I could not possibly find it. On it was the sentence,
	"I ask you to remember that in the days to come you will be the citizens of a great empire".
	Little did I imagine then that I would be lucky enough, 11 or 12 years later, to spend two years serving in east Africa with African troops, most of whom, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, has illustrated, served in the East African Division in the Burma campaign, some of whom came to Britain for the victory parade, and some of whom I tried to instruct in my limited Swahili about the difference between Bwana "Kingy George" and Bwana Joe Stalin.
	Some 40 years later, I had scarcely dreamt that I should be attending my first CHOGM meeting in New Delhi in 1983 alongside my noble friend Lady Thatcher. My noble friend Lord Freeman has said everything about the quality of discussion in those meetings: open, candid and constructive as nowhere else in the world, between representatives of every kind of sample of the human race. We discussed Grenada from very different points of view, but not challenging the conclusion offered by the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew: that the Americans ought not to have done it, but he was glad they did. Only the Commonwealth could produce that kind of judgment. Most impressively, my noble friend Lady Thatcher, in dialogue with Indira Gandhi and Julius Nyerere, was able to persuade them of her genuine commitment to progress in the search for nuclear disarmament.
	My noble friend Lord Freeman touched on a feature that has always struck me as valuable. When I went from Commonwealth finance ministers' meetings to meetings of the International Monetary Fund, I think I had an understanding of the problems of the rest of the world that was not available to other finance ministers—not least the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
	I hope that the House will forgive me if I turn from those general observations to a much smaller issue—namely, the position of the Commonwealth Institute, as trailed by the noble Lord, Lord Desai. As the House will know, it was founded in 1886 for the benefit of education in what was then the Empire, and is now the Commonwealth. It now faces a wholly unmanageable conflict between its commitments and aspirations and its resources. I am not concerned to allocate responsibility for the present unsatisfactory situation, some of which rests upon me. My noble friend Lord Hurd has observed that it is a story from which none of us emerges with great credit. I am anxious only to help us find the right way forward with the aid of the Government. The commitment of the institute is very specific—and was endorsed by Heads of Government at the CHOGM in 2003—namely, the establishment in Cambridge of the centre for commonwealth education, to which the noble Lord, Lord Desai, referred. Two years later that project is still hanging fire. That cannot be reconciled with the resources available to the institute, if any are available. It has no income flow whatever and has had none for at least a year. The only significant "asset" is the building off Kensington High Street, built in the late 1950s as a fresh home when Her Majesty's Government took over its old home in Kensington Gore. An additional burden was added to the task of maintaining that building when it was granted Grade II star listed status in 1988. That happened during my reign—if that is not the wrong word—at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. So far as I can discover it happened without my knowledge or consent, but it certainly happened during my watch and I accept responsibility for it.
	I gave the late Lord Braine a false premise for why we had gone along with what we discovered had happened. I wrote in a letter to him in 1989:
	"The implications may be advantageous to the institute in that . . . it may be eligible for additional grant assistance for maintenance and repairs".
	I could not have been more wrong. The subsequent history has totally shattered that illusion. In 2002, with the best of intentions, my noble friend Lord Blaker and the Leader of the House took part in a debate on the Commonwealth Act which fulfilled a joint aspiration—as it seems—on the part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to shed responsibility for the institute, and on the part of the institute to achieve a kind of total independence.
	For whatever reason the "dowry" that the Foreign Office conferred upon the institute fell far short of the cost of fulfilling the statutory obligation to restore and maintain the building. Within the past 18 months, with everyone's general consent, application was made to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport for the building to be delisted so as to free itself of that burden. I urge the Government to give full support to that prospect, because it seems to me to be the only way out of the present situation in which the institute is bereft of resources to fulfil its purpose. The outcome of a series of public Acts of this Parliament was that the trustees could not pursue a remedy by means of a Private Bill, which would be far too complicated. However, the matter is urgent. Indeed, it is urgent enough for a solution to be sought before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Valletta next week. Unless we seek an answer along those lines any value that may be left in the site and the building will redound to the benefit—who knows when?—of some unknown property developer, and certainly not to the benefit of the youth of the Commonwealth, which is its objective.
	The Government are well aware of the issues that I raise. They are under discussion. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, has given personal attention to them. However, I urge the Government with as much energy and vigour as I can command to find a solution that really will resolve this and will crack the problem rather than postponing it along the lines of the rather imperfect decisions that have been taken so far.

Lord Jones of Cheltenham: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, on introducing this timely debate. I speak as a great supporter of the Commonwealth. I particularly commend the work of the staff at the British high commissions around the Commonwealth, including officials at the Department for International Development. They do a splendid job, often with inadequate resources, particularly in the commercial field. Of course, here in Parliament we are well served by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which arranges meetings with visitors from the Commonwealth and sends delegations of MPs and Lords to Commonwealth countries on what are usually very demanding schedules. The Government get good value from the voluntary overtime that parliamentarians put in when they join those delegations. The CPA also keeps a watchful eye on the large number of all-party country groups; I know that because I was instrumental in setting up the All-Party Group on Botswana a few years ago. I highly recommend membership of the CPA to any noble Lords who are not already members.
	I mentioned Botswana a moment ago, and I declare my interest in Botswana—it is in the Register. Africa is moving up the political agenda, and I congratulate the Prime Minister on putting it there, because he seems to believe that Africa should get better resources than it has. Whenever I come back from Africa, water is uppermost in my mind. Many African countries are very dry and suffer long droughts. There is evidence that climate change is not only reducing rainfall but leading to a fall in the water table. Millions of Africans do not have access to clean water, which leads to malnutrition, disease and crop failure. On my first visit to Africa, which was to Kenya with the CPA, I remember being told by a Member of Parliament from the north of the country how his constituents dealt with their water shortage. Women—it was always women—would get up in the morning and walk 10 miles to fill up buckets, walk 10 miles back, cook the evening meal, eat, go to bed, then get up in the morning and go and get water. That is not living; that is a grinding existence.
	I visited Uganda a few years ago, again with the CPA, where I met members of the Jinja Rotary Club, which is twinned with the Sunrise Rotary Club in Cheltenham. They showed me some of their projects, including securing water from a natural spring by installing pipes and concrete. The local people told me that there had been no rain and there was only a trickle of water dripping from the pipes. I remember saying, "I'll see what I can do", which in retrospect was a ridiculous thing to say. However, within half an hour we experienced the most dramatic thunderstorm and cloudburst, which went on for two hours or more. For the rest of the time we were in Uganda we took every opportunity to claim credit for bringing the rain.
	I know that water supply is not one of our Government's priorities, but it ought to be pushed higher up the priority list. The UK has many excellent water companies and engineers who are able to help dry countries to use their water supply better and give advice on putting in place infrastructure—dams, pipes, boreholes—which would improve the situation. The most important point is to help to train local Africans to maintain and expand their system of water conservation and recycling. Africans must design African solutions for African problems.
	Another aspect of African development which we have already heard about and which is important is the spread of democracy. I have taken part in a number of election monitoring missions in Africa: to South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Ghana, Gambia and Sierra Leone. My week in Sierra Leone was the toughest of my life. There was little food, no clean water and lots of mosquitoes. I lost a stone in weight, and when I came home my wife tried to send me back for another week so I would lose another stone. In each of the elections that I have observed, I have been struck by the enthusiasm of the voters to take part. Long queues formed everywhere, and people waited patiently for their turn; they knew it was important to vote.
	There are good examples of young democracies flourishing. I was present in Ghana when there was a peaceful change of government following the retirement of President Rawlings, the military man who seized power twice in coups. Discussion is going on in several countries about different ways of counting votes to reflect minorities. The Government should continue to help young democracies in setting up democratic, independent electoral commissions. I look forward to taking part in future election monitoring missions.
	I would like to say a few words about the British Overseas Territories, in which I take a great interest, and particularly to say something about St Helena, which is one of the smallest members of the Commonwealth. My former constituency of Cheltenham has had a 30-year education link with the island. St Helena has seen a massive reduction in population in recent years, to such an extent that many saw little future for the island. The only regular and fairly reliable access is the remaining Royal Mail ship still in use, the RMS "St Helena", which takes five days to get from Cape Town to St Helena. I visited the island and Ascension with the CPA in 2003, and was struck that the island's community was drifting away because there were few career opportunities. There is a desperate need for more rapid access and I am delighted that the UK Government have decided to build an airport, which has long been talked about.
	The island offers much to tourists, including visitors from France. Napoleon's home is still in existence, and French people are likely to flock there to see where their once-great hero lived. Around the island, there are the remains of more than 1,000 shipwrecks to attract divers, a reminder of the pivotal part that St Helena once played as a refuelling point for vessels of the East India Company.
	Noble Lords may have read the unfortunate article in the Sunday Times by the normally reliable environment editor Jonathan Leake, who seems to have got his facts twisted. The article states that a,
	"hotel and golf complex . . . would cover up to 15 per cent of the green belt".
	That is nonsense. It might take up 1 per cent of the delightfully named Broad Bottom site where the airport and leisure complex are likely to be built, but the environment overall will be much improved.
	Noble Lords will know that I made my maiden speech a few weeks ago on the subject of frozen pensions. I would like to press the noble Baroness the Leader of the House on the issue. It seems odd that people who have paid the same contributions towards their pensions are not given the same benefits when they retire, wherever they retire. That applies particularly to the overseas territories.
	I encourage all colleagues in this and the other House to visit the Commonwealth whenever they get the chance. Its people are always pleased to see us. I mentioned that my own interest is in Botswana, which provides fantastic resorts for tourists as well as having some of the gentlest people in the world.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I respectfully remind noble Lords that this is a timed debate. We are going over time, and my noble friend will not have enough time to provide the answers that have been requested.

Lord Blaker: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Freeman on initiating the debate. Zimbabwe is not in the Commonwealth, but I believe that almost all noble Lords would like to see it come back into it once it resumes a regime that respects the principles of the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe's conditions are moving further away from achieving that position rather than closer to it. The proportion of the population below the poverty line has now reached 80 per cent. Expectation of life has dropped from above 70 years to below 40. A quarter of the population have fled, including many of the best educated and most able people; I doubt whether they will all go back. The World Economic Forum has rated Zimbabwe as the least competitive of 117 countries that it assessed.
	I want to talk particularly about the report by Anna Tibaijuka, who was appointed by the United Nations to investigate the clearances of various inhabited areas in Zimbabwe of housing and businesses. The local language describes the clearances as "Operation Clearing Rubbish"; I call them "Operation Eviction and Destruction", as 700,000 people have been made homeless and lost their businesses. Altogether, 2.4 million people are affected. The report has been debated by the UN Security Council on the initiative of Her Majesty's Government, and I congratulate them on that. Unfortunately, the debate took place in private, but the report has been published and is extremely valuable.
	It is interesting that this event has established a role for the United Nations which we on this side of the House have been urging the Government to pursue for a long time. The report proposes various steps of reconstruction and resettlement that should be vigorously followed. Other UN organisations can be used now that the precedent has been set. The International Crisis Group suggests that Zimbabwe's regional neighbours should make clear their expectation that Zimbabwe should implement fully the recommendations of the report, and that the African Union should encourage the African Commission on Human and People's Rights to investigate whether the operation breached Zimbabwe's obligations under the African Union's human rights charter.
	The Commonwealth is a very suitable body for playing a part in resolving the Zimbabwe problem, but a change in the attitude of the Commonwealth leaders—especially those in Africa—is needed. It has been a puzzle for many for a long time why the African leaders are so reluctant to take the steps that would be effective. That is in spite of the obligations that they have assumed in the NePAD treaty, the African Union treaty and the SADC treaty, all of which oblige them to observe human rights, the rule of law and good governance, and to exercise peer pressure to that effect. When I asked President Obasanjo recently why the reluctance existed, he said that the reason was land. That was taken by the meeting that I attended as implicit criticism of United Kingdom governments.
	In fact, Her Majesty's governments have in succession had a creditable role in relation to financing the transfer of land. Between 1980 and 1985, the United Kingdom provided £47 million for land resettlement in Zimbabwe. In following years, successive United Kingdom governments have been ready to resume assistance in financing land transfer, leading to a conference in 1998 in which all major international donors took part. But that conference was met by indifference on the part of Zimbabwe. At Abuja in 2001, agreement was reached on a scheme of land resettlement and accepted by Zimbabwe, among others, only to be repudiated within weeks by Mr Mugabe.
	Thinking over the history that has led to the violent and terrible situation now in Zimbabwe, I came across a copy of a document—I have every reason to believe that it is authentic—that might shed some light on why President Obasanjo gave me the reply that he did. It is dated 5 November 1997, is addressed to the Minister of Agriculture and Land in Zimbabwe, and states:
	"I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers . . . I am told there were discussions in 1989 and 1996 to explore the possibility of further assistance. However that is all in the past".
	The letter would certainly have become known to other African leaders. It will have fuelled such suspicions as they had about the intentions of the British nation to help them in the transfer of land. It is interesting that the letter was followed by the failure of the 1998 conference. The letter was signed by Clare Short, then Secretary of State for International Development.
	There will be many other important matters to be discussed at the Commonwealth meeting, but I hope that Zimbabwe will not be omitted. It is a very suitable subject for the Commonwealth to debate, and it would be a great pity if it were left out. If the Commonwealth has the will, it is well placed to help to resolve the problem of Zimbabwe, which is so serious for all of southern Africa—indeed, for Africa as a whole.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, has already said that the Commonwealth is unique and a force for good. I agree. It is a subtle and effective channel of diplomacy, an institution which quietly makes connections and gets on with the business. In the current world trade talks, with members from every major trading group, the Commonwealth is a significant player. The CHOGM agenda will highlight trade and development at a critical time, with the likelihood of another breakdown of talks in Hong Kong which, of course, will affect the poorest countries most.
	The forthcoming summit will again focus on Africa. Some 18 Commonwealth countries are in Africa—one third of the Commonwealth's membership and two thirds of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP). We have heard on many occasions that the African continent is the most vulnerable part of our planet and the noble Lord, Lord Jones, has given some examples. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord May for highlighting Africa in last week's climate change debate. This Government have given greater priority to Africa and have increased their aid budget and debt relief, but the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, will agree that not nearly enough has happened on trade.
	I have worked mainly with civil society organisations which have campaigned for genuine changes in trade through the Trade Justice campaign, which lobbied Parliament earlier this month. The Commission for Africa supported many of those changes at a high level, mainly through NePAD and the peer review mechanism, which includes the involvement of civil society. The Commonwealth summit is bound to endorse those. And yet the G8 summit was a disappointment for most trade campaigners because, seen by the poorest countries through the prism of negotiations and endless promises, there are still no visible signs of progress for them. The chances of the EU during the Doha round finding any new formula for reducing agricultural subsidies that will satisfy both the French farmers and developing countries seem remote, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, mentioned.
	Yet at the same time the EU is preparing to go ahead with its economic partnership agreements under WTO rules, which, without proper safeguards will directly hurt the ACP countries. That will occur in spite of the assurances in the Cotonou agreement, which was specifically intended to preserve the existing arrangements and protect the most vulnerable countries from globalisation and free trade. That will happen in spite of the laudable efforts of this Government.
	The Commonwealth has called again and again for the phasing out of export subsidies, for the reduction of trade-distorting domestic support, for goods produced in the developed world, and for increasing market access for goods from the developing world. The summit will be a further opportunity for the poorest and least developed countries to press for special and differential treatment, especially those saddled with high export/debt ratios, dependent on one or two commodities, and with no prospect of diversification. It means lower tariff reductions, longer implementation periods of WTO rules, which is very important, and expanded technical assistance and support for individual countries that are adversely affected by loss of trade preferences.
	The UK is in the forefront of those negotiations, not just because of the EU presidency, but because of its position in the world economy and its long track record. It enjoys one of Europe's fastest-growing rates of FDI—four times that of Africa, according to the latest UNCTAD report. However, it is precisely because of our experience of developing countries that they are expecting more active support.
	But that is not a foregone conclusion. The DTI and DfID have had some difficulty reconciling free and fair trade. DfID has supported important research into alternatives to economic partnership agreements, such as new generalised system of preferences. I have read the Government's response to the Select Committee report on fair trade and I know that the Government have circulated that research, but do they themselves recommend the revised GSP as the way forward? Will the "Everything But Arms" (EBA) agreement conflict with the EU's plan for regional partnership agreements and greater regional integration among the ACP countries? Will the latest "EBA plus" solution exempt the least-developed countries from reciprocal market access under WTO rules, and how will Her Majesty's Government persuade the EU to get round this? These are questions with which DfID has grappled but have not yet been crystallised or answered by the Commission.
	The EU position is that ACP countries must be encouraged to enter a partnership agreement or a regional partnership agreement, because they are the only WTO-compatible options. The Singapore issues are still on the table, and it seems that even DfID is expecting the most vulnerable countries to fall in line with the key principle of reciprocity. In their response to the fair trade report, the Government accepted that until they entered an "Everything But Arms" agreement, no ACP state should enjoy worse access to the EU than under Cotonou and that the EBA could extend even beyond LDCs. What they cannot accept is that the economic partnership agreement itself is inappropriate for those countries.
	These are complex, technical issues. Winston Cox, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, responsible for development, has warned that these various agreements will overstretch the negotiating capacity of most ACP countries which, he says, urgently need to translate potential gains into actual, practical gains—especially in areas such as agriculture. The "hubs and spokes" projects to train and provide regional trade advisers in this context are one of the best examples of the Commonwealth at work.
	Finally, will the Government give their full backing to plans outlined recently by the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit to encourage more civil society support for the APRM? The Commonwealth stands for all the qualities that we hold most dear in the world. In a dangerous world, not least in Africa, it has an impressive record of achievement that goes back several decades. It already has a close partnership with the European Union and it is improving its links with Francophone countries. That is another important aspect that has not been mentioned. The Commonwealth is the best vehicle for negotiating trade agreements at this time, and for ending the WTO stalemate. We must make the most of it.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, whose very name has been imprinted on my mind as an island archipelago since an early childhood atlas.
	It is highly imaginative and timeous of my noble friend Lord Freeman to have secured this debate in advance of that unlyrically christened instrument, CHOGM; although the word "chogm" in Malta has the pulse of a powerful marine engine that we must hope will metaphorically eventuate there. In that context, I endorse with enthusiasm my noble friend's thesis that CHOGM should concert a common position in advance of the WTO "tradefest" in Hong Kong, just as I applaud his anatomisation of the Commonwealth at large.
	Others in your Lordships' House have joined my noble friend in wishing to see us use the Commonwealth's collective history and political geography as a force for practical good in an uncertain world. In the midst of such uncertainty, the stability and familiarity of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth relationship—I allude to relations between other Commonwealth countries, apart from ourselves—is not only a reassurance but a sure basis for further exploration.
	My own positiveness is rooted in a gap half-year after a postgraduate degree at Harvard, whence I returned to London by what are now 16 independent members of the Commonwealth in north America, Australasia, Africa and the oceans. The prime motivation in 1959 was to see those countries before we joined the EEC, whenever that might have been. But that motivation had been stimulated at Oxford through being a rareish British member of the Ralegh club, which for the benefit of the Hansard reporter, is spelt R, A, L, E, G, H. This consisted mainly of Commonwealth Rhodes scholars and met under Chatham House rules on Sunday nights to hear great men speak about the Commonwealth. I recall evenings with Alan Lennox-Boyd, then Colonial Secretary, K M Pannikar and J K Galbraith, whose own origins were Canadian, before he became the American Ambassador in India.
	One of the countries I visited, in the days before Tanganyika and Zanzibar were united, was Tanzania. Last year, I went back with a CPA delegation and I was struck by how the personal relations within the political classes of both countries remain so close and vibrant between us. The index of heads of state in Commonwealth countries educated in the United Kingdom took another turn when the Tanzanian Prime Minister reminded our CPA delegation colleague, Mrs Valerie Davey, then Labour MP for Bristol West, that in the mid-1960s she had taught him in Tanzania—rather than in the UK.
	In 1959, in Tanganyika, I visited Bagomoyo on the coast, the town through which some 19th century British explorers of Africa set out on their journeys and through which the body of Livingstone was carried back to the sea. We did not go there last year, but I remember the archaeological investigations occurring there 45 years earlier into Arab buildings, and that prompts my contribution today.
	Other Members of your Lordship's House are picking up the threads of my noble friend Lord Freeman in exploring how the Commonwealth can exploit our mutual past in today's circumstances for political ends. I want to ventilate how we might strengthen and renew the links in cultural ways to reinforce the possibility of political opportunities. I am thinking, in particular, of collaboration to enhance our mutual heritage in the built environment. Of course, there may be exports, like the stone from the quarries of Portland which provide the headstones for all the Commonwealth war graves in the world or the wrought iron which went out as ballast in returning Australian wool clipper ships to make Melbourne, with New Orleans, one of the greatest cities in the world for wrought iron architecture. But I am thinking more of technical services and marketing expertise—only, of course, if they are welcomed—in restoring the Commonwealth's built environment, whether imperial or otherwise, where these are the keys to tourist success, as India has already proved.
	Last night, at the Heritage Counts dinner, I sat next to a senior English Heritage officer who has himself taken 5,000 photographs of colonial architecture. The catalogues of British book auction houses are likewise full of photographs of the imperial past. My own great-grand-uncle who, like a good sapper officer, painted watercolours in the Crimea, was one of the earliest photographers in Mauritius where, in his sapper capacity, he was building the roads, the port, the magistrates' court and the prison.
	If we can build a Commonwealth facility, possibly through a charitable vehicle under Commonwealth auspices, to display and to enhance our mutual heritage, we shall not only do economic good, but also increase the knowledge we have of each other and the reasons why the Commonwealth, in the familiar words of 1066 and All That, is a good thing.
	In advancing this cultural salient, I take comfort from cricket, which others have mentioned. This country's particularly salient contributions to global civilisation have lain in political common sense and lyric poetry, which come together in the game of cricket, itself one of the few international sports to have laws rather than rules. It has been one of the binding threads of the Commonwealth, appealing remarkably to a diverse series of national temperaments.
	But above all, we must capitalise on the Commonwealth's capacity for good humour and good-natured debate. At a Commonwealth education ministers' conference in Nicosia in the early 1980s, I once had to defend the British policy of charging full costs for overseas student fees, even if those full costs in an admirably ambiguous British way, were never precisely defined. In intensity of assault, the occasion was a rerun of the action at the mission station at Rorke's Drift, but I shall never forget how good humour made it an enjoyable and not merely a memorable event for myself, in which all of us remained friends.

Baroness Prashar: My Lords, I too am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for securing this very timely debate and for providing us with an opportunity to debate the UK's relations with the Commonwealth, as the Commonwealth leaders gather for next week's summit in Malta. I enthusiastically support what the noble Lord has said and I want to underline the three areas where action was indicated.
	At the outset, I declare my interest in and my wholehearted commitment to the Commonwealth. In an age of multiple identities, a unifying factor for me has been the Commonwealth. More particularly, I have been a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society and since 2002 a trustee and its chairman. Therefore, my contribution will be mainly about the role of non-governmental organisations or civil society in the Commonwealth.
	I start where eyes are set and that is Malta, where the opening of the Commonwealth People's Forum will precede the start of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at the end of the week. The capacity of non-governmental organisations for connection and for consensus-building has always been a particular Commonwealth strength and I very much look forward to being there and seeing it fully utilised in Malta.
	The first area where the Commonwealth can provide movement and partnership is in building on the work of the G8 summit and the recent UN Millennium Summit in reviewing and achieving the millennium development goals and giving fresh impetus to the poverty and development agenda. As has already been said, it is also vital that the Commonwealth prepares to use its significant membership of the WTO because in 1999, Commonwealth leaders meeting in Durban made an important contribution to the world trade agenda and in the same way Malta can provide an effective input into the Hong Kong trade talks due in December this year. In doing so, I hope that they will listen to what comes out of the people's forum.
	Secondly, the previous Commonwealth summit in Abuja in Nigeria was dominated by debate about Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe may have left the Commonwealth but the people of Zimbabwe have not. Commonwealth links endure in a myriad ways, through doctors, journalists, lawyers, academics and so on. Those connections to the people in Zimbabwe continue and we should work for them so that the people of Zimbabwe, in time, can resume their rightful place in the Commonwealth.
	That brings me to the role of Commonwealth NGOs. As I said earlier, next week will provide a unique opportunity for 53 sovereign nations from all parts of the globe, representing a quarter of the world's people, to make a mark on global issues. It will also be a great demonstration of the power and the reach of a Commonwealth civil society. The Commonwealth People's Forum, which will be organised by the Commonwealth Foundation, which I shall be joining next week, is a great gathering of that other dimension of the Commonwealth, the people's Commonwealth. The initiator of the idea of a parallel Commonwealth forum at CHOGM and its first organiser at the Edinburgh summit was, of course, the Royal Commonwealth Society. Issues of extremism, liberty, tolerance, development and information technology will be on the agenda. In all those issues non-governmental organisations can make a significant contribution but often that potential is not always realised.
	I believe that the UK Government can do more and provide leadership in that area within the Commonwealth context to help people improve relations between communities and citizens in this country, as we have already heard through sport, culture and youth activities, which are the obvious channels for that purpose. In my capacity as chair of the Royal Commonwealth Society, I see the work that we carry out in central London where we have led developments on youth CHOGMs where people are given the practical experience of how democracy and the rule of law work in practice. We are developing young people and promoting policy debate and we are ensuring that there is better dialogue, communication and understanding.
	It is sad, and a strange irony, that the Commonwealth is least appreciated and understood in the way that it should be. It is not on the radar screen of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; it is only there when there is a problem, such as with Zimbabwe, but it is never positively promoted. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, is very committed and is keen that this dimension is not just on the radar screen of the FCO but is also on those of other government departments. I hope that she will urge the Government to approach Malta in a positive and optimistic spirit to help that meeting realise its potential and to ensure that it gives the leadership and support that civil society and NGOs require. I hope that the message from this House will be that we do not just work at inter-governmental level, but we also make sure that the people of the Commonwealth connect through civil society activities.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Freeman for bringing this debate to the House today. It has been fascinating to hear from so many noble Lords who have wide-ranging knowledge and experience of the Commonwealth. My comments will come from my own direct experience as the only ever Australian woman Member of your Lordships' House. I have been here for more than 24 years. At the beginning, a number of senior Peers said how nice it was to have a colonial Member—a word that was out-of-date even then. There are currently three Australian Members of this House: the noble Lords, Lord May and Lord Broers, and me. I know that the noble Lord, Lord May, is also British, but I do not know the situation of the noble Lord, Lord Broers. I am Australian only, because, until recently, Australia would revoke one's nationality if one applied for citizenship of another country. But this country is so tolerant that it will allow members of the Commonwealth to take part in politics at any level and to stand for election for any office. Unfortunately, the reverse situation does not exist in many Commonwealth countries. It is a great tribute to Britain that this tolerance exists here.
	The Commonwealth is a family of nations spread throughout the world, each responsible for its own affairs, but each closely tied to Britain by more than tradition. In the month of November, we cannot forget the sacrifices made and the lives lost by the Commonwealth in the two World Wars. Other noble Lords have referred to them. A few years ago, I was at a moving remembrance service in Kenya, when tall, stooped old men of the King's African Rifles put down the umbrellas protecting them from the fierce sun to step forward and lay their wreaths. It is more than the old who are moved by the history of what happened in the past and the closeness of Commonwealth countries. Young Australians in ever-increasing numbers go to Gallipoli for the dawn service on Anzac Day. Many young people now join the service at the new Australian War Memorial at Hyde Park Corner.
	In trade, it is not just wine and tourism. Australia and Britain are closely linked, but I do not intend to speak about this, as my noble friend Lord Goodlad, who was a wonderful British High Commissioner in Canberra, is next in the list of speakers. When I lived in Sydney—here I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, as I believe we have more cast iron than Melbourne, but there is a great rivalry between those two cities—the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was then high commissioner. In the 1960s, he was a founder of the Britain-Australia Society, which grows stronger here every year and has a large number of new members.
	Britain has given a parliamentary and legal system to the Commonwealth that has proved to be invaluable. In this year, the less I say about the Ashes, the better. I am afraid that I fail the Tebbit test, so noble Lords can tell what my reaction was. Famous Australian actresses, scientists, businessmen and women have made their names in Britain. Until they received recognition here, they were not really valued in Australia. They include musicians from Nellie Melba to Joan Sutherland, and Charles Mackerras, who is just celebrating his 80th birthday. Australians seem to be everywhere in Britain. I was one of the many thousands of Australian dentists who came to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s. I came short-term, but I find myself still here 50 years later. The shared language of the Commonwealth is enormously important. It means that wherever we go in the world, we are able to communicate with people from other parts of the Commonwealth. When one goes to a CPA conference, one feels that there is a great family feeling.
	I will take up the point made by my noble friend Lord Freeman about the computers of this House. I was on the Information Committee, and all computers that have been discontinued for Peers' use are recycled. They go to other parts of the world, largely to the Commonwealth parts of Africa. He need not worry about them being wasted. I would like to see greater medical support from this country, and I know that the Royal College of Physicians is for that. Many poorer countries cannot afford to send people here to train, but we have experts, many from those counties, who would happily go back and give their experience. It is simply a matter of getting agreement on salaries with the National Health Service to allow that to happen. It would be a very good thing.
	The supporters on my coat of arms are a lion and a kangaroo. The British lion holds up the Australian wattle flower and the kangaroo holds up the English rose. I feel that is symbolic about the way most of us feel about the Commonwealth. It is a shared experience. The Commonwealth is a very special group of countries, and the linkage is strong and lasting. I would not underestimate the NGO part of it, which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. NGOs do a great deal of good and the Commonwealth will see that their work gets even better.

Lord Goodlad: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Freeman on his wide-ranging and penetrating speech opening this debate. I am very pleased to be following my noble friend Lady Gardner, in whose country I have just spent some very happy years. I join her in saluting the contributions of the Commonwealth in war, not least those of the Australian forces over the years, in defence of the ideals, values and freedoms that we share.
	I join noble Lords in their tributes to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Over the generations, many friendships have been made and sustained, and values shared and disseminated, in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. In recent years, I have attended seminars in the Jubilee Room of Westminster Hall that have been outstanding for those who participated. I believe that the meetings, particularly those of presiding officers and clerks throughout the world, have been of inestimable value in forwarding the objectives of the Commonwealth.
	In 1998, I had the honour of attending the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association annual conference in New Zealand, and I visited the Solomon Islands on the way—they were a bit behind in their contribution and were ineligible to attend the conference. I was most courteously met at the airport by the Speaker, who said that he had summoned Parliament to hear my address the following day. I turned up first thing in the morning, and was flattered and gratified by the full turnout. It was standing room only. After I had made my hastily put-together speech, I answered a few questions, and then the Speaker adjourned the House for morning tea. My self-satisfaction at having attracted such an enormous turnout was immediately punctured when I saw the magnificence of the morning tea arrayed before us. It went far beyond tea, and even further beyond the morning. It was an example of magnificent, inclusive south sea island hospitality.
	How do the UK's relations with the Commonwealth look from the South Pacific? It is a vast area with more than a dozen small states, all of which are poor and some of which are so low-lying that their existence is threatened by global warming. They are nearly all members of the Commonwealth. In fact, they are more than one-fifth of the total membership. Our bilateral aid budget—£4.5 million per annum—exiguous by Department for International Development standards, is being cut completely. The task is being left to the European Union, whose record in the delivery of aid is perhaps fortunately beyond the scope of this debate. In 1998 there was a proposal—fortunately rejected by Ministers—to close the High Commission in Papua New Guinea—a poor country, constituting over three-quarters of the land mass of the South Pacific islands, over three-quarters of the population; and where there are substantial British interests.
	However, four high commission closures in the region have recently been announced. They do not, fortunately, include the Solomon Islands. In 2000 the Solomon Islands requested that Australia send some police to help quell the troubles in Guadalcanal. Australia, understandably, refused because the safety of the police could not be guaranteed. It ended up sending a warship, organising an evacuation and a peace conference and now has a large number of police and officials there. There is a lesson here. The so-called arc of insecurity running from East Timor through Papua New Guinea, where tens of thousands were killed in Bougainville and where there is still great unrest, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, from which British interests are to be pursued in the so-called "hub and spoke" operation, is an example of an area where failing states may well emerge, international organised crime flourish and British and Commonwealth objectives may be seriously damaged.
	In a changing world British resources must be configured to observe changing priorities. I trust that in a region containing over one-fifth of Commonwealth members, where the UK has historically been highly respected, the Government will be vigilant to ensure that there are sufficient resources and that in future they are deployed in a properly planned and co-ordinated fashion.
	The forthcoming CHOGM in Malta will be heavily focused inevitably on WTO issues and terrorism. But there will also be a focus on education. "Education—creating opportunity realising potential" was the theme for the Commonwealth Day celebrations on 14 March this year—"the golden thread", as it has been called, that binds the Commonwealth. As Nelson Mandela said:
	"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world".
	The achievements of most Commonwealth objectives—the promotion of sustainable economic and social development, the alleviation of poverty, fighting communicable diseases, protecting the environment and combating criminal activities all involve access to universal education.
	The Government's flagship policy in this area, endorsed by the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth in 2003, has been the Commonwealth Institute and the Centre for Commonwealth Education at Cambridge under the direction of Professor Colin Colclough. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, referred to this, as did my noble and learned friend Lord Howe in describing the predicament in which that flagship finds itself; namely, adrift.
	Lest your Lordships should be in any doubt as to the strength of feeling in the Commonwealth on this matter, I remind you of the words of the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, a man of noted moderation and temperance. He said:
	"The UK's decision is selfish imperialism. This scandalous act robs millions of children in the developing world of educational opportunities. By having this white elephant de-listed, the Commonwealth Institute could have realised funds for education programmes for 75 million children in the Commonwealth who have never seen the walls of a classroom. The British Government has missed this opportunity and instead decided to keep the Institute's assets locked in a derelict building—a Millennium Dome of the 1960s—which no one wants, no one needs and serves no purpose whatsoever . . .
	"The Commonwealth has been wholly supportive of the British Government's efforts . . . This decision flies in the face of those efforts and of the UK Government's stated goal to achieve universal primary education by 2015."
	This problem will not be solved by the time of CHOGM, but I hope that a solution will be announced.
	My noble and learned friend said that legislation might be required. Clearly, a Private or Private Member's Bill would not be appropriate. If a government Bill has a sufficiently widely drawn Long Title it could go in that, otherwise there should be a new Bill. I believe that it would have widespread support in this House.
	The respected record of the United Kingdom in Commonwealth matters and our pride in helping the burnishing of the golden thread of education are at stake. I trust that the Leader of the House will reassure us today.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, as is appropriate in a debate in your Lordships' House, we have heard a lot about past connections with what used to be called the British Empire and Commonwealth, but also a certain amount about where we are today. Clearly, the Commonwealth is now very different from what it was when we were born. I recall as a boy singing in the Coronation and watching people from the British Empire and the Commonwealth—the Queen of Tonga and all. We were in a very different world.
	We cannot overplay the significance of the Commonwealth today, but clearly we need always to reinvent the rationale for these networks in each generation. I think that there has been a general consensus from all Benches that we are in danger as a country of underplaying the Commonwealth's significance. It is a very useful network in all sorts of ways—for development and for democracy building. I say that as someone who does not believe—as the current US Administration appear to—that democracy building can be done in five years. Democracy building, as we are all very clear here, is a long-term process—few European countries successfully move through the painful transition from traditional society to modern state without a lot of bloodshed and revolution—and it gives us a degree of leverage to help countries that are following us through this process go through it with as little pain as possible.
	The Commonwealth is a very good network for education and educational exchange. I fear that in recent years we have reached a stage at which the United Kingdom takes more from the Commonwealth in terms of teachers and students trained elsewhere and does not put enough back in. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will approve if I say that my son spent a summer in Uganda teaching mathematics. He thoroughly enjoyed it and came back with a degree of knowledge of the politics of Uganda. He assured me that four years ago it was much less democratic than appeared to be the case. That is precisely the sort of thing that we should be doing—encouraging our young people to teach in other Commonwealth countries as well as taking some of their best-trained students, as we do in this country.
	Migration and dual-citizenship should be seen as a plus in this country; far too often they are seen as a minus. Migration, after all, is not simply a one-way movement. People come here, they work and they go back. A Barbadian couple with whom I used to sing in my local church choir announced two years ago that they were returning to Barbados to retire, after a good 40 years in this country. There are continuing social and economic links between us and those other countries from which we should benefit. There are military links through joint peace-keeping operations in the United Nations. There is not enough training yet, but as we begin to build a peace-keeping arrangement between the European Union and the African Union—a very new development—Britain should be able to contribute much more than many other European countries, precisely because we have those links to so many African Union armies. Of course one must mention our very strong link in that 5 per cent of British Army troops have been recruited from Commonwealth countries, most notably Fiji.
	We should make the best of those continuing links in Britain's social and economic interests—above all, with India, where already it is clear that the British economy benefits from those who trade between Britain and India because they are closely rooted in both societies; with countries such as Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia; potentially, and we hope also, with Nigeria and Ghana; and, through our own Chinese community, with China. I was not quite clear whether the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was suggesting that if we cannot have Hong Kong in the Commonwealth we should encourage China to join as a whole. As the Chinese economy becomes more important, we have assets in this country which link us to there.
	I want to talk about how we reinvent the Commonwealth in terms of public diplomacy and explaining to people in this country that the Commonwealth still matters and is part of a network of advantage to Britain. Our younger generation, wherever their parents or grandparents were born, know very little about the Commonwealth. I was struck watching the celebration of Remembrance Sunday last weekend by how little the Commonwealth contribution to the Second World War or the First World War is remembered. This is almost the central institution of British memory each year. It might almost be said that we wallow in it.
	We have forgotten that the largest army in the British Imperial Armies, after Britain, in both world wars came from the Indian subcontinent and that, as has been mentioned, regiments from East Africa, West Africa and the Caribbean also played significant parts. I saw no Indian veterans marching past the Cenotaph. I watched a small group of elderly West Indians in the final stages of the procession. As Britain holds the EU presidency on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, just behind the West Indians was a small group, unmarked, of Dutch, Danes and Norwegians, who also played a significant role in the war.
	Perhaps the Government will think more intelligently in future about how we play the politics of memory in this country, and how that fits into not just ceremonies but history teaching in British schools. My wife and I were at the Monte Cassino war cemetery some years ago with a young Asian couple on their honeymoon who thought that that had nothing to do with them, until we took them to show them the six pillars of names of Indian soldiers who had died in the battle for Monte Cassino. Our young people need to know about those links if they are to understand a world in which Britain is no longer a white country, and in which Britain is linked in all sorts of ways that benefit us to a global economy and society. If we want to maintain the Commonwealth network as a bridge between North and South, we and our other Commonwealth partners need to retain the legitimacy to offer advice, criticism, financial assistance and training and, sadly, in some cases, as in Sierra Leone, to participate in humanitarian interventions when conflicts spill across borders or domestic order collapses.
	So we must continue to invest in the Commonwealth, in symbolic as well as financial and political terms. We must explain to our rising generation why that network remains valuable to us as a country, but is also a network that reaches deeply into this country and links us in many valuable ways to states and societies across the world.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I join others in warmly thanking my noble friend Lord Freeman for promoting this debate. The timing is very nice. Next week we have the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta, a country, a state, a nation that I had the pleasure of visiting recently to participate in preparatory discussions on the prospects for CHOGM. That will be a big event in what is admittedly a small island community. We should give them our full support and warm feelings in carrying out that important conference event.
	It has been a stimulating debate, because there is much experience here among your Lordships. I was especially thrilled to hear the voice of Australia coming through strongly in the debate in the contribution from my noble friends Lady Gardner and Lord Goodlad, who returns from a highly successful tour as High Commissioner in Canberra.
	A decade ago, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place, which I then had the honour of chairing, issued a very positive and optimistic report about the future role of the Commonwealth. We argued in that report that the Commonwealth was acquiring a new significance in a networked world and that Britain should make much more of its connections and overall Commonwealth potential. We came up with a long string of recommendations and said that there were hard practical reasons for Britain to give much more attention to its Commonwealth links. That was in 1996, just under a decade ago.
	What has happened in that decade? Not much, I fear. Of course, there were a lot of speeches. We were warmly applauded on all sides for our report. The incoming Labour Government produced some fine rhetoric about how they were going to renew our commitment to the Commonwealth. I hope that it does not sound as though I am being world-weary in saying that a great many of the speeches made then are still being made today and a great many of the ideas promoted then are still promoted today—some of them in today's debate. The unwelcome truth is that for too many people, the Commonwealth remains a useful talking shop with no particular new role in this turbulent and dangerous world. That applies in particular to the printed media, which have a spasmodic and infrequent interest in the Commonwealth.
	Some things that have happened since that report have been negative. The whole Zimbabwe saga, about which my noble friend Lord Blaker spoke, has settled down now in that Zimbabwe has gone, it has walked out, but it has not been a glorious affair. Coming down to detail, my noble and learned friend Lord Howe rightly raised with such strength and feeling the deplorably negative development of the Commonwealth Institute. He is absolutely correct to do so. What is happening there and how the trustees have been left with no way out is deplorable. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, when she replies, will tell us that the Government will apply their mind to a way forward on that front. Things cannot be left as they are.
	Despite all that striking of a gloomy note looking backwards, the arguments that we advanced 10 years ago for putting the Commonwealth much more at the centre of British foreign and commercial policy are many times stronger than they were in the middle of the previous decade. I should like to share three overriding reasons why that is so.
	First, the Commonwealth is a living network of relations that stretches across all continents—Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas—and across almost all religions in an age when global reach is the essential quality and characteristic needed of our institutions to tackle global problems. In particular, I emphasise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar: that the Commonwealth is not just what we see on the surface of governmental organisations, it is a vast web of more than 200 non-governmental and sub-governmental organisations creating the sort of network that is relevant to the information age. That does not exist in many of the other institutions that we invented back in the 20th century, which cannot produce that quality.
	Secondly, the Commonwealth happens to be the fastest-growing entity in the world. I do not think that people have quite adjusted to that, but it is growing faster than China and contains at least six of the most dynamic knowledge-driven economies in the world. It is not just a question of raw materials and commodities, it now contains some of the fastest growing economies. As our trade and investment tilt away from Europe, as they are bound to do, towards the rising Asia, as the whole centre of gravity continues to move in the Asian direction, so the whole Commonwealth network becomes infinitely more relevant for us in hard commercial terms, not just symbolic or historic terms, although they stick in people's memories.
	My third reason why we should consider the matter anew is the most significant. The Commonwealth as an institution not only survives but attracts new members—plenty of nations want to join and several have joined in recent years—when the world's other multi-national organisations, designed, as I said, for the 20th century, are, frankly, failing us and in deep trouble. The Commonwealth provides scope for a real North-South dialogue on trade and security matters on equal, rather than patronising terms.
	When we have problems at the UN, with its members at loggerheads over fundamental issues and with severe internal problems to boot when we have the EU apparently "stalled"—I use that word taken from the Prime Minister—or at least becalmed, with sharply divided views among its members on trade liberalisation, security and world affairs; when we see the WTO struggling to avoid deadlock at Doha on farm subsidies with zero help, I am afraid, from some of our European partners; and when those outside existing trade blocs feel increasingly frustrated that their access to the richer markets is still barred in many ways, we begin to realise that there must be better ways forward. I suggest that we turn to the Commonwealth where the scene looks far more positive.
	On the economic side, intra-Commonwealth trade appears to be expanding steadily and intra-Commonwealth investment flows between Commonwealth members, although the statistics are hard to accumulate, also are clearly expanding. More than that, the Commonwealth offers, at least potentially, the kind of forum in which the faster-growing and richer countries, and the poorer and smaller countries, can speak on equal terms, and in which the faiths can sit down and discuss their problems calmly. There are 500 million Muslims in the Commonwealth. I know that there are some backslidings, but almost all Commonwealth members are seriously committed to contributing to global peace and stability rather than pursuing endless vendettas against America, the West, colonialism and all the other shibboleths of yesterday.
	It is time to think about how a more ambitious Commonwealth of nations building on this successful model could become a real force in opening up the world economy and in uniting the more well intentioned and responsible countries on our planet in facing up to all the ugly dangers of the age: terrorism, pariah nations, paralysing poverty, inter-ethnic wars, corruption, rotten governance, and so the list goes on. One is left with the final question: can the Commonwealth rise up to and meet that wider role and more ambitious challenge in its present form?
	There are perhaps ways to move on to a Commonwealth "Mark Two" which could fulfil some of those hopes. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned the idea of closer association between existing Commonwealth and other countries. There is a great deal in that. There are other democracies—countries in the "good guy" camp—which would love to work much more closely with the Commonwealth. I cannot resist mentioning Japan. It is a nation returning to normal country status; it wants to abandon decades of pacifism; and it wants to contribute to global peace and stability in a decisive way and on a scale commensurate with its economic weight, which happens to be colossal, because it produces 13 per cent of the world's GNP.
	If we ponder on the idea of an intimately allied grouping, built on the Commonwealth model, which brought along in association Japan, but included India—the giant awakening—Australasia, which is almost the most dynamic area in the world; the UK, which is also, I am happy to say, extremely dynamic; and a number of other countries, that would be a network of common wealth, interests and power able to speak on friendly, but firm and equal, terms with the American giant, which is so important, and also, of course, to stand up for the common values of justice and democracy in a way that no other international institution currently seems capable of doing.
	The other day a very able and leading commentator, Wolfgang Munchau, at the Financial Times—a super-sympathetic, EU-centric newspaper—described the European Union as,
	"the wrong institutional platform to deal with globalisation".
	Some would say, sadly, the same about the deeply troubled United Nations. Perhaps, as the new century gets under way, there is a gap to be filled in the architecture of our global institutions, or perhaps a Commonwealth "Mark Two" might do the job better.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for giving us the opportunity to consider the UK's relations with the Commonwealth. This is an especially important time as we are just one week from the Valletta Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. I will, of course, ensure that this debate is drawn to the attention of my colleagues who will attend the meeting.
	Noble Lords gave three interesting descriptions of the Commonwealth. The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, described it as unique. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, talked about the Commonwealth as a useful network and stressed the importance of links in terms of culture, defence and education. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, talked about a living network of relations.
	The Commonwealth is one of the older international organisations. Its governments represent almost half of humanity, one quarter of the world's governments and one fifth of global trade. Membership is diverse, ranging from some of the world's richer nations to some of the poorest on the planet. Commonwealth countries share a unique heritage—a common language, common legal and financial systems, and a commitment to good governance and democracy. Best practice can be, and frequently is, widely applicable and widely shared. Very importantly—it has been alluded to many times in this debate—the Commonwealth operates by consensus, which allows members to exchange views in a frank and less formal manner than in other multilateral fora.
	Let me say at the outset that the United Kingdom believes in the Commonwealth and remains the major contributor to the Commonwealth headquarters organisations, specifically the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation. At the heart of the organisation are the Harare principles, which set out the shared commitment to good governance, human rights and democracy. So the Commonwealth's declared goals are close to those of the United Kingdom. There are two important goals; namely, to help to prevent or resolve conflicts, strengthen democracy and the rule of law and achieve greater respect for human rights, and to promote pro-poor policies for economic growth and sustainable development.
	Uniquely, I think, among international organisations, the Commonwealth has procedures in place to suspend members should they fall short of those standards. As the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, made clear, the Commonwealth takes those commitments very seriously. In recent years, Nigeria, Fiji and Pakistan were suspended. All have returned to the Commonwealth family, with Nigeria now serving with distinction as Commonwealth chair in office. Those values are also spread by the Commonwealth's affiliated bodies—which number more than 80—including the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, the Commonwealth human rights council and the Commonwealth Business Council.
	I turn now specifically to the forthcoming heads of government meeting. The Government have three main aims, the first of which touches on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar; that is, a meeting that builds on the outcomes of the Commission for Africa Report, the Gleneagles G8 meeting and UN World Summit. The second aim is for a heads of government meeting that uses the Commonwealth's comparative advantage to set standards on confronting terrorism, promoting tolerance and resisting incitement. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, that, with respect to our third aim, we want a heads of government meeting that sends a powerful message to the Hong Kong Trade Ministerial on the need for an ambitious pro-poor development outcome on the Doha development agenda.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, raised trade. I have to say that there will doubtless be difficulties. It is no secret that trade will be contentious at the Hong Kong meeting. We know the problem areas, such as agriculture, market access and erosion of preferences, which are exacerbated for some by the separate reform of EU regimes on sugar and bananas. Given the pace of developments in those negotiations, I do not want to say too much today, but despite the difficulties I remain optimistic that CHOGM will be able to give impetus to those striving to reach agreement at Hong Kong.
	I should like to remind the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that as a government we have been relentless in our pursuit of a good outcome not only in Hong Kong but also for this entire Doha development round. That is not just rhetoric; since 1998 we have spent £181 million on trade capacity building to give developing countries themselves the capacity to negotiate on their own behalf. Moreover, I have to say to the noble Baroness that we have been roundly criticised by some of our other colleagues for doing precisely that. I also want to say to the noble Baroness that as a member of a government who have put the interests of our relations with the Commonwealth at the heart of our wider relationships, specifically on trade, it is very important indeed to remember that developing countries that are members of the Commonwealth family do not necessarily share the same aims for the outcome of the Doha development round. They managed to hold together the developing country coalition at Cancun—I was there—but a lot of anger was expressed about the difference between what the larger emerging developing countries want and what the poorer developing countries want. We would do well to remember that.
	I almost always agree with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, but I do not concur with his view of the outcome of the G8 Summit. An extra $50 billion a year by 2010 to be spent on development aid, half of that going to Africa, along with a 100 per cent multilateral debt stock cancellation providing up to $55 billion for as many as 38 poorer countries could not be called a disappointing outcome. I have talked to many African leaders and others about the G8 outcome, and that is certainly not how they would describe it.
	Turning to the themes raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, I should like to see the business, youth and people's forums, all of which precede CHOGM, picking up on some of the Gleneagles and world summit outcomes. After all, buying from business, civil society and young people is essential to Commonwealth success. I know too that the Commonwealth People's Forum will hold workshops on adaptation to climate change, faith and development, which are also UK priorities. Here I want to say a special word of thanks to the Commonwealth Foundation for its work in promoting cultural links and dialogue with NGOs across the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Youth Forum will also take forward its longstanding work on citizenship.
	Many developing Commonwealth countries, especially in Africa, are priorities for our poverty reduction programmes. In these nations, education remains a very high priority, especially quality primary education. My noble friend Lord Desai asked about the monitoring of the millennium development goals by the Commonwealth. The heads of government meeting will consider how best to monitor the MDGs and whether that should be done by the Commonwealth countries or the Secretariat alone, or working with others such as the United Nations and the OECD.
	We should also remember that the majority of Commonwealth countries are small states. These, especially the small island states, face unique challenges. Their economies are sometimes overly dependent on a limited range of products, they are geographically remote and, in many cases, they are vulnerable to natural disasters. Over the past year alone, Commonwealth Caribbean nations have been devastated by hurricanes, while Commonwealth Asian countries were ravaged by the Indian Ocean tsunami. Most recently, Pakistan and India have been affected by a catastrophic earthquake.
	My noble friend Lord Desai referred specifically to earthquake-proof housing. I can tell my noble friend that a donor conference is to be held in two days' time to discuss the modalities of reconstruction. We will work with the government of Pakistan's plans and encourage appropriate reconstruction methods. The United Kingdom is a close friend of India and Pakistan and maintains regular contact with both governments, actively encouraging them to seek a lasting resolution to all of their outstanding issues. I refer in particular to the opening of crossing points along the Line of Control, which will assist individuals by allowing them to travel between the two parts of Kashmir.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, said that it was important to find a solution to the question of the Commonwealth Institute. The issue was also raised by the noble Lords, Lord Freeman, Lord Goodlad and Lord Howell. The Government are committed to helping the trustees find a solution to their present difficulties. This will be particularly important if the trustees are properly to endow the Commonwealth Institute's Centre for Commonwealth Education in Cambridge. The first meeting between the trustees and an interdepartmental working group, which has representatives from DCMS, ODPM, FCO and DfID, took place last week. A second meeting is planned for later today. The group will study the options now available, including the listed building consent route. The group has also advised the trustees on how best to instigate dialogue with the parliamentary legislation office on whether a private or hybrid Bill might be possible. However, I have to tell the House that I understand that preliminary contacts suggest that this might be problematic.
	On the question of Zimbabwe, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, and mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, I should say that the country is not on the Commonwealth agenda. I think that is right. At the moment there is no obvious remit on Zimbabwe for the Commonwealth, following Mugabe's decision to withdraw from the organisation. However, we believe that external pressure, in particular from within Africa and the UN, offers the best hope for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe. So we will continue to take every opportunity to raise the issue of Zimbabwe in appropriate fora and with partners bilaterally, including other Commonwealth members.
	The policies of the government of Zimbabwe have been disastrous and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, about the importance of providing support for the people of Zimbabwe. That is why we have made a major contribution to ensuring that Zimbabwe's food shortages do not lead to famine. Since September 2001 we have donated over £71 million in humanitarian assistance and I remind noble Lords that at one stage we were feeding 1.5 million Zimbabweans per day.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, asked about Uganda and the upcoming elections. We welcome the outcome of the July referendum with its support for a return to multi-party politics. We think it is essential to have a level playing field for all parties for the February/March 2006 elections. I understand that much of the necessary legislation is now awaiting presidential assent, and we need to ensure that the ruling Movement Party is fully separated from the state before the elections are held.
	On the matter of used PCs, the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is quite right about our computer equipment. The House of Lords sets a very good example. When PCs are replaced, those machines are donated for use in developing countries. Currently many are going to Namibia and, in accordance with arrangements recently approved by the Information Committee, there is a plan to extend this to other developing countries in the Commonwealth and elsewhere.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, mentioned the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Development. CPTM's role as a Commonwealth affiliated body will be reviewed at CHOGM. The Secretary-General will present a paper to the heads of state and government. It is likely to recommend that CPTM is brought more closely into the Commonwealth family.
	My noble friend Lord Hunt of Chesterton raised the important issue of culture and referred to the importance of the welcome that we give to scholars coming to the United Kingdom from Commonwealth countries. Scholars on UK-sponsored scholarships receive a welcome briefing. There is, however, a problem with those who come independently and I am not sure what resources we can put into dealing with that.
	As to NGOs, an issue to which my noble friend also referred, the Commonwealth Foundation, which organises the Commonwealth People's Forum, has been mandated to bring Commonwealth NGOs more fully into the decision-making process. I should say to my noble friend that the criteria for membership will be reviewed, but currently the rules require a close association with a member state, adherence to the Harare principles and a willingness to abide by Commonwealth rules and norms.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, raised the issue of medical workers. The suggestion that UK health workers might return to or visit and work in Commonwealth countries has not been raised at Commonwealth meetings. Commonwealth governments have, however, addressed the issue of the targeted recruitment of healthcare workers in the developing Commonwealth countries by the health services of developed Commonwealth countries. The Malta CHOGM communiqué is likely to contain language on this problem.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, referred to last week's Memorial Day service and, in particular, the importance of the Commonwealth's contribution. While the service at the Cenotaph attracts the most publicity, it is important to remember that hundreds of similar services took place around the United Kingdom and thousands of similar events took place across the Commonwealth and around the world, many in Commonwealth war graves cemeteries.
	About two years ago the Ministry of Defence produced a very useful document which set out the contribution made to the British Army historically by people from other countries. I have used it many times with people of Caribbean descent to show the contribution from Caribbean countries. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, worked extremely hard to establish memorial gates in recognition of the important contribution made by troops from Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent. Indeed, a few days before Remembrance Sunday, an event was held at the gates. With a colleague from the Ministry of Defence and others, I attended an event at the Museum of London, organised by the Windrush Foundation, which acknowledged the contribution of Caribbean countries to the outcome of the Second World War. Much is going on but the noble Lord is quite right that we need to make these events a much more regular part of Remembrance Day services.
	Before I conclude, I must say something about cricket, a subject which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Desai, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. I could not agree more about the central importance of cricket in the Commonwealth. As the product of a British colony myself, cricket continues to have a central place in my life, including listening to ball-by-ball commentary at very odd hours indeed, depending on which part of the world the game is being played.
	I conclude by paying tribute to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don MacKinnon, and his staff at the Commonwealth Secretariat. He has presided over unprecedented modernisation of the Commonwealth. He has sometimes ruffled feathers, even among his own staff, but his work has been essential to bring the Commonwealth Secretariat into the 21st century. I know that we all wish him, our Commonwealth colleagues and the Maltese authorities well at the Valletta CHOGM.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, as there are a few moments left I endorse absolutely her closing remarks and the tribute to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and his staff. Perhaps I may ask one question. I appreciate very much her understanding response to the points I raised about the Commonwealth Institute. In view of her identification of the possible difficulties for a private or hybrid Bill, can she give the House an assurance that, in view of the unanimity of desire for this problem to be solved, the Government will not rule out the possibility of supporting a public Bill, which would have wide acclamation not only in this House but elsewhere?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hope I made it clear in what I said about the Commonwealth Institute that there are ongoing discussions between a cross-government group of officials and the trustees. At this point in time, nothing has been ruled in or out.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred to the unanimity of views, which indeed may have been the case in this House. But when I was the Minister responsible in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, a very large number of distinguished people, particularly from this House, wrote to me about the future of the Commonwealth Institute. They were very much divided as between those who wished to see it pulled down and those who wished to see it preserved.

Lord Freeman: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this excellent debate. I hope very much that the proceedings will be read not only by the Minister's colleagues in government but also in High Commissions throughout the world.
	I particularly thank the Minister for her assurances about the negotiations that will take place in Hong Kong with the World Trade Organisation, following on from CHOGM. I also thank my noble friend Lord Howell for his rather exciting vision of the Commonwealth Mark 2 including Japan. It is a challenging idea which a number of us will wish to take away and think about very carefully indeed.
	I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes for indicating what Parliament is doing about its used computers. I can assure her that that message will now be repeated in the boardrooms of the City, where I hope the example of Parliament will be followed.
	Perhaps I may draw a thread between what the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon touched upon. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, described the Commonwealth almost as a cross-section of the United Nations of the world, and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe referred to the experience that British Ministers have gained through participating in Commonwealth discussions prior to other discussions—for example, in G8, EU and UN negotiations. Both points are extremely helpful. I simply add that the Commonwealth is a smaller canvass upon which the United Kingdom can concentrate and focus and perhaps achieve more in the world as a whole, in particular in an economic and educational sense.
	On a personal note, the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and a number of other speakers referred to Uganda, which is a country quite close to my heart. I hope the message will go back to President Museveni that this House supports what he and his government are trying to do in introducing multi-party elections. It is a great challenge. I hope that a positive message will go back to Uganda that we support what is being done and that any gentle persuasion that is necessary will be forthcoming from other members of the Commonwealth.
	On that point, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers,

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Pensions

Lord Fowler: rose to call attention to the current issues concerning public sector and private pensions; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, we welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to what is his first proper pensions debate. The noble Lord comes from Birmingham, but that is not his only great distinction. I first came across him when I was Secretary of State for Health and he was director of the National Association of Health Authorities, forever issuing disobliging press releases about my policies. I knew that my turn would come.
	He has been out of government for some months following his resignation and I fear that he may not find his new area the best inheritance in Whitehall. Indeed, if they were not such a nice bunch, I would almost suspect that it was the revenge of the Government Whips.
	From this side, we were sorry to say goodbye to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, who has departed from the Front Bench. She was a formidable debater and at times was capable of arguing the most dubious of cases with enormous skill. I know that at this moment she is hurrying from a pensions conference to take part in the debate.
	Also from this side of the House, we are very sorry to say goodbye to my noble friend Lord Higgins, who has done a tremendous service for this party in a whole variety of positions. But obviously we very much welcome in his place the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale.
	I declare an interest in that I was in charge of pensions policy for six years in the Cabinet of my noble friend Lady Thatcher, and I am also a member of the funded House of Commons pension scheme, albeit before the newest, and I think very difficult to defend, accrual rates were introduced.
	I will say one thing for this Government. Over the past eight years, there has been no lack of inquiries, no lack of commissions and, for that matter, no lack of Secretaries of State—we have had four in the past two years—taking a fresh look at the pensions problem. The Government have been rather like a company which has called in consultants but cannot bring itself to do any of the things that they recommend so it brings in more consultants. In the outside world, that process leads to bankruptcy, which is, frankly, just about where pensions policy stands at the moment.
	Back in the heady days of 1997, the Government appointed Frank Field to think the unthinkable and then, a few months later, sacked him. In 2002 and 2003, they published Green and then White Papers on pensions and now, in 2005, as I will show, they reject their own declared policy.
	As for action, the most important step was taken not by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions but by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he imposed the notorious £5 billion a year pensions tax. His takings from pensions now total something like £40 billion, and that has been one reason why we have seen the collapse of final salary schemes in the private sector, where, we might remember, 80 per cent of the population work.
	But let me be more specific about government pensions policy and examine an area where the Government have direct policy and financial responsibility—that is, public sector pensions and policy on the age of retirement. There is little or no doubt about the demographic trend. The latest government inquiry by the Pensions Commission, headed by the noble Lord, Lord Turner, whom we certainly welcome to this House and whose report we saw today in the Financial Times some weeks ahead of official publication, sets out the position very clearly in its first report. The Executive Summary of that report states:
	"Life expectancy is increasing rapidly and will continue to do so. This is good news. But combined with a forecast low birth rate this will produce a near doubling in the percentage of the population aged 65 years and over between now and 2050, with further increase thereafter".
	That means that the ratio of the over-65s to the working population between the ages of 20 and 64 will increase from 27 per cent today to 48 per cent in 2050. In other words, the working population will have to finance not only their children but also an increasing number of retired people.
	That, of course, is not a new message. Twenty years ago, when I published my own pensions White Paper, I set out the same kind of forecast, although at that time I was challenged by spokesmen of the party opposite, who then wanted a reduction in the retirement age.
	Self-evidently, this demographic trend has a major effect on the Government, who, through the taxpayer, are financing public sector pensions. Many of the big schemes, such as that of the Civil Service and the health service, are unfunded in that they are not backed by marketable assets. They are run on a pay-as-you-go basis, and the taxpayer not only stands behind them but also picks up the bill. What is the size of that unfunded liability? The only disagreement is how vast the liability is. The last official estimate was £460 billion. The estimate of the actuaries Watson Wyatt is almost £700 billion, and the latest estimate from the much respected Institute of Economic Affairs is that it is more than £800 billion.
	My own view is that we would be wise to veer to the estimates of bodies such as the IEA, which has a good track record and no interest in understating the liability. But we can all agree that there is a formidable liability and, as the Turner commission says more generally, unavoidable choices in the policies to be pursued. No one policy will meet all our aspirations for a decent pension system for both men and women in this country—I emphasise "pensions for women" because that is a vitally important area as well—and, at the same time, be just to all our citizens and be afforded. But on one point all the Government's advisers were united: future policy needs to include an increase in the retirement age. The summary to the Turner commission's report stated:
	"Our response to the demographic challenge should include a rise in the average age of retirement",
	and that is confirmed by the reports today. The Government's own White Paper was even more specific on public sector pensions, where the normal retirement age is 60. In their Green Paper they had proposed raising the normal pension age to 65 and in the White Paper they confirmed that policy. They said that all new staff would be recruited on the basis of retiring at 65 and—this is the important point—negotiations would start with existing staff to see on what basis the policy would be applied to them. That was their statement.
	Against the background of the vast unfunded liability, that was entirely sensible. Members of the public sector schemes could look forward to index-linked final salary pensions, which few of those who were financing those pensions could expect. It was entirely reasonable to ask for that. Let us be clear. No one has ever proposed that a man of 58 or 59 years of age would suddenly be told that his retirement age had just been increased to 65, but the plan would be to increase it by steps for staff in their 20s, 30s and 40s and perhaps even by a little for those in their early and mid-50s. That is what the negotiations were intended to be about and the Government said they were determined on that point. The White Paper not only said that explicitly but added:
	"The Government has a responsibility in its role as a large employer to lead the way in addressing the social and economic consequences of demographic change".
	And Mr Alan Johnson, the Trade and Industry Secretary, said only the day before the final negotiation that the case for raising the retirement age was "irrefutable". He went on:
	"We are healthier, living longer. The problem is that there are fewer people working, funding more people in retirement. For us to say to the private sector, 'You have to work longer and save more money', and to the public sector, 'You stick with your retirement age', is impossible".
	And so how did the Government pursue their leadership role? How did they argue this "irrefutable" case? The answer is that they did neither. The public sector unions rattled their sabres and the Government collapsed.
	It takes quite a lot for the Financial Times, the Daily Mail and the Morning Star to use the same splash headline but they did so on the following day. The Financial Times said:
	"Labour caves in over pensions".
	The Daily Mail said:
	"Labour caves in on public sector pensions",
	and the Morning Star said:
	"Ministers cave in on pensions".
	Only the Morning Star used the phrase in praise of government action, but all three newspapers were right in their analysis. For, although at some stage new employees will be recruited on the basis that their retirement age is 65, all those already in employment, be they in their 20s or 30s, will still have a retirement age of 60 in addition to their indexed final salary pension.
	Lucky them. For in the private sector, final salary schemes are closing, and there is little prospect of new ones being created. And in the private sector, retirement ages are being increased. This does not show a Government leading but a Government abdicating responsibility and taking a decision they know to be both wrong and unjust.
	It is not fashionable in this House to be passionate, let alone on a subject such as pensions. But in my view this ranks as one of the very worst decisions that the Government have ever taken. I will tell your Lordships why I feel so strongly. In pensions policy, there are obvious differences between the parties and those of us who take part in these debates, but there is also a bipartisan aim to improve and settle the position. This is not an area in which we slavishly follow party policies. I supported the pension credit, to slight disgruntlement on my Front Bench, not as a permanent benefit but as a means of helping now those people who did not have the opportunity of building up their own, and my support was quoted by Ministers in the other place. I also believe strongly in people building up a second pension outside the state system. I have always been attracted by the compulsory pension saving scheme in Switzerland, which, again, is not exactly the policy of my party.
	Where are we left now in reaching sensible, agreed reform of pensions? The fact is that our plans have been torpedoed and destroyed by this baleful decision. How can you say to a man or woman in the private sector, "You will work to 65 but your colleagues in the public sector, who may well be better paid, can retire at 60 on a pension you can only dream of and, incidentally, to which you are contributing"? How can you say to the man or woman in the private sector, "We want you to save for your retirement and are even prepared to compel you to save more"? Might they not say, "No way. The state should provide, just as it does with public sector pensions"?
	How on earth can the Prime Minister, as reported today and yesterday, contemplate raising the retirement age generally following the Turner report, having just run away from the decision with the public sector? Frankly, this is a public sector solution for the benefit of the public sector, agreed, I regret to say, by people who have no idea of what is happening in the labour force generally. Worst of all, they have no concept of the damage that they have done and are doing.
	This is a major setback to sensible pension policy in this country. It goes against the advice of the Government's own advisers. It is a further kick in the teeth to the millions of people working in this country who do not have the benefit of an index-linked final salary scheme. Above all, it creates two nations in retirement: a privileged minority, ironically, are supported by a majority who do not have the same benefits.
	It is unjust and it is unfair. It is a policy which must be changed, if not by this Government then by a new one. The position cannot rest where it is.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, is he not aware that in the private sector, many firms have adopted a very similar policy? They terminate their final salary schemes for newcomers while honouring the contracts for people who are already in employment. Final salary schemes have been phased out or discontinued for newcomers, but the present staff keep their contracts. It is a very similar situation.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, the noble Baroness, who has a wide knowledge of pensions, is utterly mistaken in this respect. Staff are not retaining their benefits. The noble Baroness might also think of this: it is not me or my party urging that existing staff have their pension age increased but her Government in their White Paper. Factually, I fear she is wrong about the private sector, and I hope that when she comes to speak she will explain why the Government whom she supports propose in their pensions White Paper the exact policy that I have been advocating. I beg to move for Papers.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on securing this debate. The timing seems a little strange, given that we are awaiting the publication of the pensions review. The noble Lord has a very long and distinguished record in this area, as have many others who will speak in this debate. I would not be able to comment on many of the major issues that the noble Lord has brought to our attention, but I am sure that many others will. However, looking around your Lordships' House, it seems that any mandatory retirement age has very little relevance here.
	In the brief time available to me, I want to concentrate on an issue about which I feel passionate. It is important to many in our country and in this House and was important to the noble Lord when he was Secretary of State of State and I had the pleasure of working with him. I refer to carers, those 6 million people who look after someone who is ill or frail or disabled, and who save our nation—as I never miss the opportunity of reminding your Lordships, for which I make no apology—£57 billion each year.
	It is generally acknowledged that if you are a carer you are financially disadvantaged, not only because of the costs of caring itself but also because many carers give up paid work to care and thus build up poverty for themselves and their families in the future. I remind your Lordships that this is not just a women's problem, as is often mistakenly assumed. Although childcare is overwhelmingly performed by women, adult care is more evenly split, with 18 per cent of women fulfilling this role compared with 14 per cent of men.
	I want to acknowledge the progress that has been made by this Government in recognising the needs of carers, who make such an extraordinary contribution to our society and who, for the most part, do it willingly and with love. Of course, many of the Government's initiatives to help older people have had a positive impact on carers, too, since many of them are over retiring age and have had some share of the extra £11 billion that will be spent on pensioners in 2005–06, especially since about half of that goes to the poorest pensioners. The tax and benefits changes which have been introduced since 1997 mean that the average pensioner household is £1,400 a year better off than in 1997.
	I want particularly to mention the state second pension and how that is enabling almost 2 million carers, as well as 2.2 million long-term sick and disabled people, to build up entitlement to an additional state pension for the first time. In her absence, I pay tribute to the work that my noble friend Lady Hollis did on this issue when it was before your Lordships' House.
	There are now three Acts of Parliament on the statute book for carers. The most recent came into operation only last year, and focused for the first time on enabling carers to have access to, as one described it, an ordinary life. It focused not just on helping them to care better but on enabling them to participate in leisure, education and cultural activities, as the rest of us expect to do.
	So a great deal of progress has been made, but much remains to be done if we are to stop carers in future being in the situation that Carers UK reports many of them are in today. One in five has to cut back on food, one in three has trouble paying utility bills, four out of 10 find the level of charges for services causes financial difficulties, and one in three has no savings at all. An increase in the carers' allowance would help; it is currently paid at the lowest rate of all benefits. But the surest way to keep carers who are pensioners out of poverty is to enable them to stay in or return to paid employment for as long as possible. This not only helps them financially now and in the future but also helps them socially and psychologically by removing the isolation that many carers experience.
	In this regard, the work done by Action for Carers and Employment is much to be commended. I am delighted that the Prime Minister's early commitment to carers in the carers strategy has now been fulfilled in the introduction of flexible working rights for carers in the Work and Families Bill. These rights were first introduced for parents with children under six and disabled children under 18. They have proved a great success, so it is very fitting that they should be extended to carers to bring about better opportunities for them to plan their working lives with their caring responsibilities. If employees are pressured because of caring responsibilities, clearly, that reflects on their performance.
	I know that the Government are also looking for other ways to support carers, including better pensions and packages developed with other departments. However, we must also bring about some changes in the benefits system, if such changes are to benefit carers' pension position by enabling them to build up entitlements. When someone approaches retirement age it is usual to them to look forward to drawing their pension but for people on carer's allowance the feelings are very different. Yes, they get their pension like anyone else, but overnight their carer's allowance disappears. The problem for carers is the overlapping benefit rule, which states that you can get only one benefit to replace lost income. Even though you may meet the criteria for both carer's allowance and other income replacement benefits, most income replacement benefits, including state retirement pension, are paid at a higher rate. You lose your carer's allowance, so you are not much better off. In fact, many carers feel very strongly about the unfairness and injustice of the overlapping benefit rule.
	Carers UK is calling on the Government to rethink the status and purpose of the carer's allowance given the many changes in society since it was introduced—and very welcome it was—in the 1970s. I hope that those of us who are continuing to press for changes to provide proper financial recognition for the thousands of carers who continue to provide hours of care into their retirements will be heard. These problems, like many of the others that we will hear about today, are unlikely to go away. It has been estimated that while 6 million carers are active today, in 30 years we shall need 9 million because of the welcome increase in longevity and of people who once would have died enjoying longer lives, but with a greater disability than hitherto. Some 1.5 million carers are aged 60 or over and one in three of those cares for 50 hours a week or more. I spoke to a carer last week who was 92 and said to me apropos his wife aged 86, "Caring is tough, but she couldn't cope without me and I couldn't cope without her. She is my reason to carry on". We would do well to ensure we do everything that we can to make sure that he carries on.

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, it is a signal pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. As the former chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee I can testify probably better than anyone else in this House to the effectiveness with which, over a period of 20 years, she has been an effective voice for carers. Her speech will repay careful study and it is a pleasure to follow her.
	Like the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, I should declare an interest. I am also a member of the contributory House of Commons pension scheme. I served my apprenticeship on the Standing Committee that considered the Social Security Bill in 1986. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was a very big cheese in those days. He was in charge of the honourable Member for Braintree, who is now of course the distinguished and noble Lord, Lord Newton. He was also in charge of a new Whip who joined the committee at a later stage who was the honourable Member for Huntingdon, and look what happened to him. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was a big cheese then and he is a big cheese now.
	I start on a carping note, but I hope that it will be the only one in the next seven minutes. I am very disappointed that the Labour Administration ran away from a proper public debate on pensions at the last election. I believe—and I stand to be corrected—that the Turner commission was set up as a device to park the whole subject so that it would not embarrass Ministers. There is a political argument that says that pensions is such a complicated issue that perhaps the heat and tension of the hustings is not the best place to discuss such a subtly nuanced subject. However, it was a mistake not to deal with such a serious and fundamentally important subject, recognising the amount of ignorance—in the best sense of the word; I do not use it pejoratively—that people have about saving for their retirement. It was a sadly missed opportunity. I cannot help but say that and I feel better now that I have got it off my chest.
	There are now important reasons for ensuring that Ministers do not miss this opportunity. All the demographic and economic trends and requirements for simplification are coming to a head. The moment for decisions is coming. Early next year, the Government will be faced with a signal opportunity to put some of these things right once and for all. If they do not take that opportunity and make proper use of it, we will all pay a price. As the Turner commission makes clear, if we do not get all of this right, we will end up with pensioners, on average, being poorer in future. That would be a tragedy.
	The Turner commission did a valuable service. People think that a lot of new stuff was produced. It brought a lot of good information together and refreshed some of the evidence, but there is huge expertise and a body of knowledge in the industry in this country which was already aware of all these problems. The noble Lord, Lord Turner, brought that to the fore and brought it all together in a helpful way, but no one should think that any of the information was discovered for the first time as a result of his work. Noble Lords who have the time should look at page 173 of the noble Lord's report—that is to show noble Lords that I got as far as page 173 in the first report. Table 5.1 is a wonderful table headed "total personal sector balance sheet". It relates to total housing assets. The rubric at the bottom of the table says that the figures are correct to the nearest £50 billion—the noble Lord, Lord Turner, is no cheapskate. I would love to add my name to a report that had a table of that kind.
	More seriously, one thing about the noble Lord's report that worries me and should worry us all is what has now become known as the funnel of uncertainty in terms of demographic change. He makes it quite clear—he is right—that official figures in the past have been substantially wrong about subsequent developments. The trends are based on best evidence and best judgment—nobody is criticising the GAD and other people who have done the figures—but there is still the real possibility that we could be underestimating the extent of this problem, and it is bad enough as it is.
	The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, is quite right to say that the issue is technically complicated in the delivery and mechanisms, but it boils down to four simple things—pensioners, on average, will be poorer unless taxes go up, retirement ages rise or people save more money. Quintessentially, that is what this issue is all about. Therefore, it would be sensible to do bits of all three to avoid the fourth. In effect, that is what the Turner commission is actively considering. I would be happy to support the idea in the Financial Times leak today—if it is accurate—although I would be much happier if we did not go for realigning S2P and went for a single much more straightforward system of having a basic state pension which was clearly designed not only to be at a level that would guarantee against poverty but also to be a base on which second and third-tier pension provision could be built.
	More than anything else in this debate, if the Minister were my fairy godmother and granted me a single wish, it would be that reform is now essential. No time is left for getting this wrong. The time is right. The system is too complicated. Simplification must be part of the proposal and education and information must also play a part. The long-term goal is clear—we need a higher, simpler, less means-tested pension for us all, which offers a base on which other things can be built.
	The Government should strive to achieve consensus and consensus is out there now—it has been emerging for some time. There is certainly consensus on the broad, outline policy, but it will be harder to get detailed changes and everybody in the same tent on that basis. It is a goal that the Minister should work for as hard as he can.
	I have two other things to say before I sit down. One priority must be the position of women. This reform will fail if it does not address the problem facing women. That is an established view now outside this place, and I hope that the Government will respond to that. Also, we must all start thinking much more positively about retirement after 65. There are ways that the Government can help with that too, but we should use this debate and the opportunities coming in the next weeks and months to promote the idea positively.
	Finally, I believe that the Prime Minister in his Brighton conference speech was right when he said that on some of the reforms that he had made he wished he had gone further. I only hope that in the fullness of time he does not look back on pensions reform and think that he got that wrong by not going far enough when taking the big decisions on pensions later next year.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on securing the debate. He was always ready to speak with me and listen to my views and ideas when he was responsible for these issues, and I appreciated that very much. I declare an interest as president of the Pensions Policy Institute and vice-president of Age Concern.
	Pension reform is essential if for no other reason than that the current system is not fair: it benefits higher earners and creates a huge amount of uncertainty. People do not know what they are going to get from the state; they may rely too much on the private pensions sector; state expenditure on pensions is rather low and the numbers of people over pensioner age, as we have heard, is increasing very rapidly. The Government have recognised that the state is the primary organisation to prevent poverty in later life, and the pension credit is therefore something that is very welcome; but the facts are that a fifth of all pensioners in this country are living in poverty, that women are much more at risk—14 per cent of single men and 21 per cent of single women are in dire poverty—and nearly one-third of those from ethnic minority groups are living in poverty as well. We know that among pensioner couples, women receive 34 pence for every pound received by men, and nearly 70 per cent of older people receive half their income from the state, while 9 million people are estimated to be saving too little for retirement.
	I acknowledge that the Government have done a lot, with winter fuel payments, pension credit, help with council tax, local bus travel and so on. Cross-party agreements exist on the fact that pensioner poverty must be eliminated; the problem is to reach a consensus—and we need a consensus—on how best to achieve that. In the interim report of the noble Lord, Lord Turner, last October, he stressed that 12 million people are not saving enough and that their pension income would be slashed by 30 per cent in 30 years' time. That is an appalling amount. The Pensions Policy Institute says that government estimates for future state spending on pensions are not accurate and therefore should not be used as the basis for calculating the extra cost of reform. In a recent report that the Prudential company produced, it was said that the state pension would no longer provide the majority of pensioners' incomes, and that is going to start from next year. The company's data monitor service said that those who were now under 40 may have to work, if this is to be properly remedied, not until 67 but until 75. That is really unthinkable at the moment.
	The PPI has estimated that more than 3.5 million households are now eligible for pension credit. That number is expected to increase by one-third over the next 10 years. The Government assume in those figures that 25 per cent of those eligible will not claim; that is a terrible estimate. They also seem to assume that GDP will be sufficient to pay for state benefits and pensions, but the number of pensioners will increase by 50 per cent over the next 50 years. The Government do not include tax relief on pension contributions of £16 billion a year when they estimate the costs. So I believe that those figures need to be looked at again.
	We also know that some groups of older people within our society are particularly vulnerable to poverty and misery in old age. Those include people who are disabled; with the ageing of the population, we must take into account that many more people will suffer from acquired disability. I am very worried, too, about self-employed people—not those running a major business but the little people, the one or two-man or woman businesses, such as window cleaners. We must also think hard about part-time and temporary workers and, of course, low-paid women, as has been eloquently said by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, who has always befriended and campaigned for carers. There is a scandalous amount of poverty among older women, and the undervaluing of carers, as the noble Baroness said, continues despite the many improvements in their status that the Government have brought in. After much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that compulsory contributions to state and private pensions are necessary in the longer term, if not now.
	I turn for a moment to the Scandinavian system. Although we all say that people there pay hugely higher taxes, they have high concessions for parental leave, flexible work and higher taxation at 50.6 per cent compared to our 36.4 per cent; but all those concessions and taxation are tied very strongly to economic growth and to increased productivity, because it all depends on people being in the workforce. That system has led to huge numbers of women—much higher than here—being in the labour market, and a huge increase in national wealth and higher standards of living. So it is worth considering more closely.
	On women's pensions, the state system in this country is more suited to 1945 than now. We need either total reform of the contributory system or a model based on residency. The reform of council tax is also essential, but not linked in any way to the ability to pay. Only 16 per cent of newly retired women qualify for a full basic state pension, compared with 78 per cent of men. The Government published a Green Paper on pensions in 2003, repeatedly promising action to improve the situation for women, but so far nothing much has happened. Alan Johnson also confirmed his enthusiasm for tackling the issue in October 2004, when he spoke to the Work and Pensions Committee. At the last Labour Party conference the Prime Minister also made similar statements. The solution, as we know, must be a higher universal state system, reducing the need for means testing. An alternative, recommended by Age Concern might be to reduce the years needed to qualify from 40 to about 25, which would bring most women into the system with entitlement to a full basic state pension. The EOC in recent polls showed that fewer than one in 10 women knew the facts of the situation that they face about being eligible for a state pension.
	It is vital that the Government follow through on a number of vital commitments that they have made to deliver fundamental reform of the pension system. Muddling through, as up to now, is no longer possible; too many people have suffered, and they will continue to do so if this promise is not kept, and kept soon.

Lord Desai: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on proposing this debate. I have spoken in previous debates that the noble Lord has introduced on pensions, and I look forward to many more that he will introduce in future.
	I must apologise to the House that I shall not be able to be here at the end, not because of any frivolity but because the House of Lords bridge team faces the marauding hoards of the MCC, and I must be there to defend our honour.
	As an economist, let me lay down a couple of ground rules. In a fundamental paper about 47 years ago, Paul Samuelson, a Nobel prize winner, showed that in all pension schemes the working generations' savings pay for the retired generations' consumptions. How you do it is your choice, but whichever way you do it, that is a fundamental proposition. So in a sense, while we concentrate quite hard on what I would call the stock of assets and the stock of liabilities, eventually it is the flow payments that are important.
	That is for two reasons: first, eventually the payment has to be there, whatever your stock position; secondly, the stock positions are difficult to estimate accurately, especially if they are many years ahead. No more than 15 years ago we were proudly saying how we had the best pension system in the whole world, and we were ahead of everyone else in Europe. Given a stock market slump, the whole situation is reversed.
	We have to be careful in claiming either a big shortfall or a big surplus. If there is a shortfall in private schemes and we make existing firms top up too quickly, that may harm their own viability as ongoing profit-earning firms. We have to be careful not to kill the golden goose. Whatever estimates we have about pension liabilities compared to likely assets must therefore be treated with not just a funnel of uncertainty, but a huge cave of uncertainty.
	Having got that off my chest, I congratulate my noble friend on his new bed of nails. He arrives in this position when not only pensions are a problem, but also welfare reform. This is a great opportunity to link the two subjects. My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley pointed out how a silly rule about overlapping benefits actually has the opposite result from what was originally intended: people who are unable to afford it suffer when they move on to a pension from the carer's allowance.
	What if we think of pensions, not as pensions, but as senior citizen's income? What if we say that every senior citizen—at a cut-off point of 60 or 65, as you like—is entitled to a state income, regardless of their work record or contribution? What if we roll up the secondary means-tested pension along with the basic state pension, pay women as much as men get, and allow people roughly £100 to £110 a week? That is not a great fortune, but it would avoid abysmal poverty for people in old age. If we do that, we should not cancel the carer's allowance, because they have an additional responsibility, not just for looking after themselves, but for caring—which has no retirement age, as my noble friend pointed out. There is all this fuss over the age of 65 or 67, but that is not a choice open to carers. We ought to look after the worst-off people.
	Moving from pensions to a senior citizen's income will cost. Every time I get up, I cost the Government another few billion pounds. But this is the time to do it, and, if it is done, welfare reform for other entitlement incomes might become much simpler. We might think about extending the principle of a citizen's income to other entitlements.
	I urge the Government to be cautiously bold in this one respect. If we can do this, at least the danger of poverty would be relieved. As to the retirement age, once again it is hard to forecast how behaviour will change. We are all assuming that in 30 years' time people will behave as they do now, and therefore x, y and z will follow. It is possible, however, that the way people work may change so drastically—working at home might become so much easier—that we may be able to suspend the notion of a retirement age. If we have converted a state pension into a citizen's income that accrues to people regardless of whether or not they are working at a certain age, the pressure to retire at a particular age will become that much less.

Lord Freeman: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Fowler on not only his speech but also the good fortune of being able to introduce this debate. I agree with his trenchant comments. I declare an interest as chairman of a large industrial final salary pension scheme. I want to concentrate, in the few minutes available, on the problems of final salary schemes in the private sector.
	My noble friend drew the distinction between the plight of those blue-collar and white-collar workers in defined-benefit final salary pension schemes who are finding their schemes in deficit—some of them closing—and the public sector. Public sector schemes include judges, former Members of Parliament who have served long enough to get a full pension, senior civil servants and Bishops, all of whom will benefit from preserved decent final salary schemes. The private sector can in general no longer afford what used to be regarded as the hallmark of good pension provision. Why?
	There are two reasons for this sudden change. First, there was the withdrawal of the benefit of reclaiming advance corporation tax on dividends. We were told at the time by the Government that we were not to worry; this would be compensated for by higher net dividend payments and, implicitly, higher stock market valuations for share prices. That has not happened, and therefore pension funds for defined-benefit final salary schemes have seen a black hole created in pension provision.
	The second reason, which is arguably more important, is that the nation is living longer. The actuarial profession, together with trustees—and I accept my part—can be blamed for not identifying this trend early enough. I plead with the Government Actuary, through the Minister, to ensure that statistics are more up to date. If we are going to continue to live longer, actuarial provisions for pension schemes must take that into account. It is a welcome development, but it has caused a massive problem for private sector pension schemes.
	There are three simple measures of amelioration—the creation of an oxygen tent for private sector defined-benefit pension schemes—which are needed urgently. It may be that a future government will reverse the tax on pension schemes, and I hope they do, but that is unlikely to happen under the present Administration.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, indicated, many schemes are closed to new entrants. The schemes themselves are therefore maturing by definition, as no new members are entering. This means the trustees must shift their assets from the stock market to the gilt market—the debt market—in order to match liabilities. The Government have so far refused to recognise this, in my judgment, through the issue of substantial index-linked gilts available only to pension funds. I hope the Chancellor will take that into account in his Pre-Budget Statement, otherwise there will be continued pressure on the stock market, which will affect many people in this country and mean that trustees are unable to match liabilities with assets. That is the first measure.
	The second is that I hope the new pension fund regulator will take a pragmatic view of the substantial deficits that are now prevalent in pension schemes in the private sector, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
	We are talking about 20, 30, 40 or 50 per cent of the market capitalisation of many companies in the Financial Times index of the top 350 companies. When we debated pensions legislation a few years ago, we were told by the Government not to worry as the levy—I seem to remember a figure of £180 million per annum in that regard—upon pension funds to pay pensions to those whose schemes had collapsed or defaulted would be offset by the benefit of reducing the maximum level of indexation of pensions in payment. That has not happened. The cost of the pension fund levy is now several hundred million pounds—several multiples of what was originally estimated—and inflation is below the 2.5 per cent lower cap. It is a recurring problem for many pension funds that have to pay the cost of the levy to the regulator.
	Help is needed in providing more information to those who work in the private sector regarding their potential pension benefits. I give the Government credit for introducing recent changes on that, which are much to be welcomed. However, what people in the private sector really need is a pensions health check at the ages of 30, 40 and 50 to explain what their accrued pension benefits are going to be. If you change jobs and go from a defined benefit scheme into a defined contribution scheme and then into your own personal pension scheme, it is difficult to calculate what your future benefits will be. We need Stelios to introduce some kind of easyPension benefit calculation, available on the Internet so that you can feed in the information—which is available from your pension fund's trustees—and obtain an aggregate figure. The private sector is in crisis and help is needed.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for giving us this opportunity to debate pensions. I welcome my noble friend Lord Hunt to the first major debate on pensions to which he will reply. He has a hard act to follow as we all recognise that my noble friend Lady Hollis was expert at handling her brief. However, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Hunt will do extremely well.
	There has been much talk about a pensions crisis. While it may not be appropriate to describe the present situation as a complete crisis, there could well be a crisis in the future if nothing is done. Nevertheless some people today are facing acute problems because of the failure of the companies they work for and the consequent collapse of pension provision. In my years as a trade union official I was always keen to get members into final salary schemes. Indeed, such schemes were largely regarded as one of the major success stories of the previous century. For many people they have been an enormous success, enabling them to lead retirements free of financial anxiety. We did not, of course, envisage the collapse of the stock market several years ago, nor the bankruptcy of a number of major firms, leading to the disappearance of pension provision to which their employees had contributed believing their investment to be totally safe.
	I agree that the Government's decision on tax in relation to ACT did not help very much. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, about the Government's recent decision on public sector pension provision because all the Government seem to me to be doing are honouring existing contracts and offering different contracts to new employees. That, of course, happens all the time in the private sector.
	The Government have attempted to deal with some of the problems in their recent pensions legislation, a key element of which was the new Pension Protection Fund designed to provide compensation for employees caught in this situation. It did not at the time deal with the problems of employees who had already lost out, but some steps have been taken via the introduction of another fund to cope with those caught in the gap. I certainly supported all those moves but the major concern is that there may not be enough resources available in the funds to deal with all the problems that could arise. We also have a new pensions regulator with much wider powers than existed for OPRA. The Government are to be applauded on the steps they have taken to cope with that unfortunate situation. However, as many speakers have said, the problem remains the overall one that we have an ageing population. We are all living longer—which should be celebrated—but we may not be saving enough as a community, either individually or communally, via the tax system to provide adequately for future generations when they retire.
	The trade unions support occupational pension schemes, which they believe should be brought about as a result of negotiation between unions and employers, but think that there should be a system of compulsory contributions. The report of the TUC's pensions task group recommends that contribution rates should be set initially at 6 per cent of all pensionable earnings in excess of £6,000 per annum, with a longer term target of 15 per cent. It proposes a 2:1 split in employer and employee contributions. There will no doubt be an opportunity for further discussion of this and other suggestions when we get the much awaited Turner report. I think, however, that compulsory contributions will be difficult to sell to the workforce unless there is more confidence in private occupational provision. People obviously will want to feel that their savings are safe. The Government have clearly realised that and hence we have the Pension Protection Fund and the financial assistance fund.
	However, most commentators on private pensions regard the state system as being the bedrock of pension provision. It has long been my view that the basic state pension should be substantially improved, and then increased regularly in line with the wages index. The Government have sought to deal with pensioner poverty through the introduction of the pensions credit. This has had the effect of lifting more than 3 million pensioners out of penury, but there is one drawback in my view—it depends on means testing. As a result it is expensive to administer and many very vulnerable people do not succeed in getting it at all. They do not receive it even though the Government have made a commendable effort to publicise it. Nevertheless it does not reach all those who are entitled to it. I still think that improving the basic state pension for everyone is the best solution. The Government's fear that the money would go to pensioners who do not really need it can be met via the taxation system, as it is already—the better off would simply pay a little more tax, but pensioners would get the money as of right without having to make a case that they were poor enough to need it.
	Probably the poorest group of pensioners are women. I am glad that the Government appear to be giving a lot of attention to the position of women. I am particularly glad that the DWP document, Women and Pensions, has been produced. Although it does not offer any solutions, it sets out some of the problems with a great deal of clarity. The problems are ones with which we are all familiar. In a contributory system—which is what the state system is—women often have an interrupted record because they take time out of the labour market to care for children and often elderly or disabled relatives.
	Despite home responsibilities protection, which gives some cover for years spent caring for others, women often still do not qualify for the full state pension. About 30 per cent reaching the age of 60 do not qualify for the full state pension. The problem is even greater for women from ethnic minorities, particularly those with a Pakistani or Bangladeshi background, as for cultural reasons many of them spend a great deal of time out of the workforce and therefore do not make contributions.
	This excellent report sets out the problems, although no solutions are offered. There is, however, a case for looking at the possibility of a citizen's pension based on residence in this country rather than a contribution record. Of course, it would be rather difficult to introduce because something would need to be done in relation to those who had contributed and would obviously feel that their contributions should count for something. On the other hand, society may be changing very rapidly with almost all women involved in working for wages outside the home and men allowed more time off to participate in child support. It will be interesting to see whether the Turner report offers some solutions to those admittedly rather difficult and complex problems. I have found this debate extremely interesting and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for introducing it.

Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I declare an interest in this subject as chairman of the financial services division of Beachcroft Wansbroughs. I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to the Government Front Bench. Once again, we are greatly indebted to my noble friend Lord Fowler for giving us this vital opportunity to discuss this important subject again. Listening to the speeches so far, I am greatly heartened by the potential for a consensus both within parties and between parties about the nature of the challenge that we face. I hope that the Government's response to the Turner commission will be well considered, brave and also—if it is in any way possible—underpinned by that broad, cross-party consensus.
	However, there is excessive complexity in the market and confusion in the minds of the public. It inevitably starts with the lack of clarity about the one area of the pensions maze with which we are all involved; namely what the state will provide. I am not implying for one moment that it is easy to provide guarantees about what the hard-pressed taxpayer will be able to provide in 2050 or even 2015; yet it is incredibly difficult for citizens to make rational decisions about those important matters if there is substantial and widespread uncertainty. The nature and extent of state provision in the longer term are the Alpha and Omega of this debate; all else flows from them. That is the main reason for turning this into a cross-party matter rather than one forced to exist under the cloud of partisan debates. Otherwise, how on earth can citizens make the necessary decisions about the situations that they are likely to face in 20, 30 or 40 years' time? The situation of course is made far worse by complex products and complicated tax rules. All of that threatens to obscure the one, all-important fact; it does pay to save.
	Looking at this morning's press reports, I offer one word of caution. Whether it is due to the commission or to the journalists' embellishment, there is a serious danger of not comparing like with like. Press reports suggest that BritSaver, as it seems to have been dubbed—the nationalised pension savings plan to be more accurate—would cost 0.2 per cent, while personal pensions cost 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent. That is a gross oversimplification; one of those includes the cost of advice and the other does not. BritSaver does not make the need for advice go away; the cost has to be included somewhere. Moreover, the true costs of large occupational schemes and group personal pension schemes are actually very similar; a figure of 0.4 to 0.5 per cent might reasonably cover both. I hope that we do not make important changes to the way society provides for its retirement on the basis of misleading and partial figures; we will need to get to the bottom of that.
	As I pointed out, the principal role of the state must remain the prevention and alleviation of poverty. That surely requires a simplification of the state pension. Please would the state remove significant complexity from that provision? That would enable those consumers who can afford to save to see more clearly what steps they need to take if they aspire to a more comfortable standard of living in retirement. The state must encourage people to save on top of what the taxpayer is able to provide. The incentive must be strong, clear and unambiguous. That is why the system of tax relief on pension contributions is so important, and also why it is essential for the state to ensure that the system of regulation allows the private sector to flourish to the benefit of all.
	I shall give some tests by which we should judge the Government's response to the forthcoming Turner report. First, how many more people will end up with sufficient retirement saving? According to the DWP, 12 million people are undersaving or not saving at all at present. The noble Lord, Lord Turner, apparently concludes that sufficiency for a high/average/lower earner means a retirement income that replaces 50 per cent /67 per cent /80 per cent, respectively, of pre-retirement earnings, which seems to me a reasonable thumb-rule. Lifting people off means-testing is worth while, but on its own it will not enable most to meet their aspirations for their retirement; that will require bold policy. Future generations will pay if the Government duck big decisions for tomorrow for fear of angering businesses and voters today.
	Secondly, we should ask, as other noble Lords have already, what the proposals do for specific underpensioned groups, such as women, carers and self-employed people. Thirdly, we should be asking whether workplace pension provision will be revitalised. There is clear evidence and consensus that the link between working and saving for retirement should be exploited, not diluted. I would like to see targeted incentives to encourage employers to contribute to workers' pensions, tailored to reflect the fact that we cannot expect the same kind of behaviour from small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed people as we might expect to see on the part of larger firms. Radical and urgent action in this area is desperately needed.
	Fourthly, we should be asking whether the people of this country will engage much more positively with the proposition that they need to plan for the future. The people of this country need to change their behaviour fundamentally, and it goes without saying that there must be a limit to compulsion. Unless citizens of their own free will begin to defer a significantly higher proportion of their consumption, we simply cannot sort this problem out. That is why we need a Government and industry partnership for consumer engagement, based on sustained awareness-raising campaigns.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for the opportunity to debate this vital issue; but given the imminence of the Turner commission's final report, I feel that this debate can fairly be described as a curtain raiser for future debates. Like a successful West End show, this one will run and run! I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, if congratulations are the right thing—it is a bed of nails. I do not think it is as comfortable as that; at least you can get off a bed of nails. I am not sure whether he can escape from his present position. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on her former contribution in the department.
	Pensions in the public and private sector cannot be discussed in isolation from developments in the state sector, and I hope that noble Lords opposite will not be suffering from a bout of collective amnesia when it comes to acknowledging their contribution prior to 1997. As a precautionary measure, we should remind them of the dire pensions legacy inherited by this Government. It was a Conservative government who abolished the earnings link, leaving millions of pensioners in poverty relying on a decreasing state pension in real terms, in a system that massively discriminated against women because they were the principal carers in a family. Their other masterstroke was the decision to allow people to opt out of first-class protected pension schemes, allowing them to become prey to the perpetrators of pensions mis-selling. Thousands of my members who worked in British Telecom and the Post Office were persuaded to invest in schemes that were vastly inferior to their final salary schemes. That is a fine example of what someone once described as the unacceptable face of capitalism.
	I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was more cautious when he attributed the collapse of final salary schemes to the abolition of advance corporation tax. The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, was perhaps a bit bolder in ascribing that as the principal cause. The Turner commission's first report, after a detailed analysis, did not come to that conclusion. It said that the collapse of the longest equity bull run that we have seen, certainly post-war, was a major influence. Of course, we cannot ignore the question of mortality. In the contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, he seemed to ignore the fact that companies had benefited from the reduction in corporation tax. I seem to remember that many companies enjoyed pension holidays, despite the fact that in my trade union capacity we tried to remind them that surpluses in pension schemes were no guarantee that they would exist over the longer term.
	In addressing the current problem, it is true to say that the crisis is not with us now, as the Turner commission first report said, but it probably will be in 20 or so years' time unless we take action now. We should not over-egg that particular situation. Creating the conditions for a pension scheme that will last for the next 50 years is no easy task. Inevitably, the complexity of trying to achieve a coherent, integrated approach will be subject to the law of unintended consequences.
	Can we square the circle of providing a good state pension for everyone while encouraging people to save for their retirement? We know that the demographics are an additional challenge that we should welcome. Due to substantial improvements in public health provision and the general quality of life, men and women are living longer with the inevitable impact on the provision of pensions and care of the elderly. With the number of people in work supporting an ever growing number of those in retirement, can we encourage people to work longer, albeit in a different capacity—either part-time or making a valuable contribution to society in the voluntary sector? Flexibility has to be part of the solution. The current cliff-edge approach to retirement is neither sensible nor efficient.
	I welcome the Government's decision to seek a consensus approach, based on the work that the Turner commission will finally produce. I think that it was unfair of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, to say that the Government ran away from the problem. Would we really have had a sensible debate on pensions during a general election? I wish it were true. Rather than them running away, I think that they took a sensible decision, as we would not have had a sensible debate.
	As people have said, the Turner commission's first report told us about the unavoidable choices. Future pensions will be poorer unless we decide to raise taxes or national insurance. Someone has calculated that if you want to raise the pension to about £103, you will probably have to raise taxes and national insurance by 3 per cent. I wonder how popular that would be. We know that we need more savings. Do we have to increase retirement age—it looks like that is the conclusion—or can we encourage flexibility, which I hope has not yet been dismissed? My plea is for the Government to try to reduce the complexity if they can.
	I praise the Government for their action in the interim. They have taken millions of pensioners out of poverty. Although we hear lots of talk about means-testing and its iniquities, the reality is that the Government have reduced its complexity. When they took office, we had a universal benefit form that was 40 pages long, but it has been reduced to 10 pages. My plea would be for the Government to look carefully at the Turner commission's recommendations, and imaginatively at what future work patterns could be like. People might prefer a sabbatical in the mid-term of their lives rather than retiring early. The Government should look at ways of encouraging employers to contribute and, if that does not work, we will have to address the question of compulsory contributions. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, that we have to get the figures right in these circumstances, which is difficult. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, I too add my thanks to my noble friend for giving us a chance to debate this important topic this afternoon. I declare an interest as a trustee of two final salary schemes; I am chairman of trustees in one case. Both are now closed to new entrants. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, that they have been closed not because of what the Conservative government did, but because of what the Labour Administration have done, for reasons that I shall explain in a minute.
	Clearly the key challenge faced by pension funding is the question of increased longevity. That can be demonstrated from my own experience. When I became chairman of one of the boards of trustees five years ago, according to the Government Actuary a man aged 65 could expect to live until he was 81.2 years old on average. Now he expects to live to 84.6 years. That is an increase of 3.4 years in life expectancy over the five years. That may be only 4.2 per cent of his total life, but it is 21 per cent of his pensionable life. Any fund offering a defined benefit linked to a final salary would face considerable challenges. That is not the Government's fault in any way. That said, the Government's actions in the interim have, in almost every way, made a difficult position worse. My noble friends Lord Freeman and Lord Fowler have already talked about the raid on the pension funds. I shall say no more, other than to draw the Government's attention to Ernst & Young's study, which suggests that income guaranteed by investments has been reduced by 18 per cent as a result of the Chancellor's actions.
	Much worse than that has been the way in which the Government have been reluctant to spell out and face the realities of the situation. That has damaged confidence, which is such an essential ingredient of long-term savings. Instead, the Government have fallen back on a round of consultation, filling up the gaps while consultation takes place with what can be described only as a subtle approach to the blame game. First in line to be blamed are, of course, the employers. We now have a massive Pensions Act and an associated large regulatory burden. As I foreshadowed in my speech on the then Bill's Second Reading, that is the death knell of final salary pension schemes. What company will want to look for and accept an open-ended obligation implicit in such a scheme? It is not only the question of longevity to which I have referred, but the powers of the Pensions Regulator as regards the level of contributions to the fund and of levies to the Pension Protection Fund itself.
	One of the schemes of which I am a trustee is a smallish scheme, with £25 million to £30 million under management. It is a mature scheme. Our income from our employer is £750,000 a year. We are just being told that our assessment for the annual contribution to the Pension Protection Fund may be as much as £600,000 a year. That is our entire income swallowed up, pretty much, in one fell swoop. What does a sensible trustee do when faced with that problem? From the company's point of view, all this open-ended obligation has a deleterious impact on the value attributed to any company if it were to be bought or merge with another company.
	There are difficulties for trustees, for who would be a trustee in those circumstances? Not me, for one. By 15 February, I am glad to say that I shall be history on both the schemes of which I am currently a trustee. My final decision to leave has been triggered by a case where we are, as trustees, in danger of being sued by a husband and wife. No one suggests that we are not paying out the right amount of money; it is a question of to whom we pay it. Under the new regulations, the issue of marital breakdown is controversial and not entirely clear in law. Therefore, both sides are saying that we should be paying the money in different proportions for each. I am a pension fund trustee, not a matrimonial adviser. So I and others will wish to cease to be trustees. Does that matter much? Maybe it does not. But there will be professional trustees in our place. That will incur increased costs, because those people must be paid and their tendency will be to sail in the middle of the convoy. There will be no readiness to break the mould, to avoid accepting the received wisdom of the moment, and in many cases they will not be particularly knowledgeable about the individual fund for which they will be trustees.
	So there is much to be said for the continuation of the defined benefit fund, and I am sad that the Government have done so much to undermine confidence in it. If the employers are not at fault, the Government try to blame the actuaries; they have tried to blame the industry and there had been a tendency to blame individuals by saying that they should save more. If you increase the tax burden, savings will certainly drop. The Government may have avoided headline increases in certain taxes, but the cumulative impact of stealth tax increases has reduced the readiness of people to save. The complexity of new measures is another issue to which many noble Lords have referred, in particular the persistent refusal to be user-friendly and consider flexibility in annuity retirement dates.
	So much for the blame game. The worst thing that the Government have done, as my noble friend said, was in their own dealings with public sector pensions. On Wednesday, 19 October, a headline in the Financial Times stated:
	"Abject surrender over public sector pensions".
	The article concluded:
	"This surrender of a policy with an unassailable rationale is typical of Tony Blair's government—for all his claims he wished he had been more radical with previous reforms. It will also be the death knell of public sector pensions in the longer term, since sooner or later a government will have to have the nerve to halt an increasingly costly gravy train for a minority of the workforce that is paid for by the majority".
	The Government have to face up to that issue and my noble friend has done the House a great service by drawing our attention to it.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on taking up his role and thank my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham for her splendid work in government over a number of years.
	Debates such as this do not always enhance the search for consensus that was called for by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, but it is the right message to give in advance of Adair Turner's report. After all, debates about pensions have one thing in common with debates about nuclear power stations: the timetable that we are talking about often relates to 2040 or 2060. It is not tomorrow or the next day, and the leak in today's Financial Times about increasing the retirement age to 67 mentions the year 2020. That is tomorrow in the world of pensions.
	We are not unique in this country in having a problem. There are some dramatic figures on the support ratio. Our ratio in 1948 was five workers for every person who was retired; today that figure is three and will move to two by the middle of the century. In South Korea, that figure will fall from 9.1 today to 1.7 in 2050. In China, it will fall from 8.8 to 2.4. Those figures have been provided by the same sources that we have to believe in all such statistical questions, but we should bear the figures in mind when we consider that we may have a crisis—not today but, as with many other countries, we are at the benign end of the spectrum.
	The fundamental problem of pensions was characterised recently by the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who said that people want something without having to pay for it. That may be a "square one" remark, but it is fundamentally true. That is why what we often call compulsion is another way of saying that we have to take decisions collectively, not only for the common good but because, left to ourselves, as my noble friend Lady Turner said, there is a lack of confidence in how to take these decisions ourselves. That is because, among other things, we lack confidence in what we have been sold by the financial services industry—although my noble friend did not put it that way. I am in favour of a mongrel, collective, public/private solution and I believe that Adair Turner and his two colleagues, my trade union friends Jeannie Drake and Professor John Hills, are the best people to give us a road map.
	On compulsion, a point that has not been discussed, but which I believe is essential, is how much employers want to employ older workers. We seem to be debating this subject in an abstract world in which people want to employ those aged 67, 68 and 69. Over the years, I have been involved in Third Age Employment Network. Anyone in the House who has been so involved knows that that is far from the case. Next year will be a very important year because we shall have the EU framework of anti-discrimination legislation and it will be important that both sides of industry find a way to get that up and running.
	The kindest way to describe the preaching from some employers, especially when one considers their record of dismissing older workers and not wanting to employ older workers, is that it is schizophrenic. In many cases, they want to sack people when they want to and yet they want to preach about later retirement. Apropos the stronger messages from the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, about the Civil Service, it was only in recent years that Civil Service employers wanted staff to reduce their retirement age from 65 to 60. That was not from altruism; they would save on the average pension that would be payable, given the turnover in the Civil Service.
	I believe the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, referred to the privileged minority, although he did not use that exact phrase. If I were to ask Members of the House what was the average Civil Service pension in the past financial year, they might think it was £10,000, £8,000, £6,000, or £4,000. It was £2,000. Although the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made some very good points, there is a caricature of those at the top end of the Civil Service on the gravy train, but that will not be recognised by most people in the Civil Service.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, that was a quote from the Financial Times, not from me. It came from the leader on 19 October.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I am glad that he does not associate himself with any such sentiment. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, mentioned the fallacy that a trillion pounds is somehow a liability. I used to be a member of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. We considered national wealth statistics with and without pension liability, but one has to have both sides of the balance sheet. There is no immediate liability to pay out a trillion pounds. If one works out the logic of national income accounting—national wealth and income—my noble friend Lord Desai is fundamentally correct. I hope that at some stage people will get that into their heads and not produce this false comparison of apples and oranges.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, before we hear from the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, perhaps I can say that many noble Lords are straying into the eighth minute, creating a time problem. That means that we shall not be able to hear my noble friend Lord Hunt speak at length, as we would wish, at the end of the debate. Perhaps noble Lords could bring their remarks to a close as the figure seven appears on the clock.

Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Fowler for introducing the debate. The Motion refers specifically to both public sector and private pensions. That is entirely apposite given the very different conditions of the two categories. Of course, what they have in common is massive underfunding, but the difference between the two is that the vast majority of members of public sector schemes continue to enjoy final salary-linked, inflation-adjusted, defined benefit pensions, whereas most active members of private sector schemes no longer enjoy those benefits and have to make do with the vastly inferior money purchase schemes.
	Furthermore, under this Government, the percentage of the workforce employed in the public sector has increased to more than one in four and continues to increase. The productive private sector and the taxpayers will have to pay the generous public sector pensions. That will represent a steadily increasing burden in future years. I agree entirely with what my noble friend said about the Government's deplorable decision to abandon their long-held intention to increase the normal retirement age for public sector workers from 60 to 65. On the other hand, the private sector workforce is told that it must work longer and put more money into its pension pots. Indeed, it is reported today that the Pensions Commission is shortly to recommend the raising of the state pension age to 67.
	In 1997, our pension system was the envy of the world. Pensions are, for most people, the most important element of savings. This Government have attacked both pensions and individual saving schemes. I concede that pensions policy is not an easy area, but most of this Government's actions have either caused serious harm, such as the removal of pension funds' privileged tax status, as referred to by my noble friends Lord Fowler and Lord Freeman, or have made an already over-complicated system even more cumbersome and expensive. The levies payable to the PPF under the Pensions Act may, paradoxically, result in more companies going bankrupt. The financial assistance scheme is, and was always going to be, woefully inadequate. The stakeholder pension scheme introduced in 2001 is largely a failure. Most recently, the new provisions regarding SIPS will give help where it is least needed and are likely to distort the housing market, putting the acquisition of reasonably priced housing out of the reach of many young people eager to get on the housing ladder.
	I return to the subject of the taxation of pension funds, already mentioned by my noble friends. In the past, pension funds have perfectly logically enjoyed a privileged status in that they were able to receive dividends from UK companies gross; that is to say, UK companies could effectively pay dividends to them without the deduction of corporation tax. The Government changed that with the Chancellor's decision in 1997 to abolish dividend tax credits. That was the notorious stealth tax, so called because it was not at all clear what the Government were up to, as very few people understood the system. I was interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, accept that that act was probably not helpful.
	The Chancellor got it badly wrong. He mistakenly believed that he could increase the tax on pension funds by as much as £5 billion a year without endangering the system. As the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants—to which I believe the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, belongs—has stated,
	"the withdrawal of the tax credit is, in our view, the most important single contributory factor to the problems that currently afflict schemes".
	The noble Lord, Lord Young, reminded us that companies have benefited from the reduction in corporation tax, but he omitted to mention that the vast majority of that reduction was implemented by Conservative governments. Killik & Co, the private client stockbroker, has estimated that the Chancellor's stealth-tax raid destroyed around £300 billion of stock market value.
	I believe that the cost of the Chancellor's raid is rather more than the £40 billion to which my noble friend Lord Fowler referred because we should consider its cumulative effects. We can assume that some 50 per cent of the stolen tax credits would have been reinvested in UK equities, yielding perhaps 3.25 per cent per annum. Taking that into account, the cost of the Chancellor's stealth-tax raid to pension funds rises to £56.6 billion. Secondly, we should also consider the fact that our stock market would today be much higher than it is if pension fund managers had not significantly reduced their weightings in UK equities as a result of the stealth-tax raid. This is the reason why, in spite of our relatively good economic performance, our stock market has massively underperformed in relation to the average of the American, German and French stock markets. If the UK stock market had performed in line with the average of those three markets, our corporate pension fund assets would be worth an additional £110 billion, which together with the £56.6 billion I mentioned, amounts to £166 billion.
	I fear that the Chancellor made a huge miscalculation in his stealth-tax raid. Its cumulative effects, coupled with his other tax increases and the imposition of an increasingly expensive and bureaucratic regulatory and compliance regime, have undoubtedly harmed the economy and weakened our competitive position as an attractive financial centre. It is very likely that the stealth-tax raid actually resulted in a substantial net loss to the Exchequer because it has had such a huge negative effect on corporate earnings, on the level of the stock market and on tax receipts.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, rightly said, there is no more time to get this right. I believe the two most important things that the Government must do are, first, to reverse their decision not to increase the retirement age for current public sector employees and, secondly, to restore the completely logical, and now badly needed, privileged tax status for pension funds. Once again, I thank my noble friend Lord Fowler for introducing this interesting debate and giving me this opportunity to speak today.

Lord Rosser: My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on securing the debate on this major issue. While, as has already been said, real progress has been made in the Government's provision for pensioners through the state pension and pension credit, the same has not been the case with some other parties. Some companies, to their credit, have maintained their final salary occupational pension schemes, sometimes with some changes, and have not joined the, at times, lemming-like rush either to bar entry to such schemes to new entrants or, in some instances, to seek to change the arrangements for future years of service for existing employees as well.
	The move away from final salary schemes had started prior to 1997, as some companies sought either to obtain a competitive advantage or to restore a competitive position, and chose to do it by reducing the costs of their pension scheme arrangements. One common feature of the move away from final salary schemes to defined contribution schemes was that it reduced a company's costs, sometimes significantly, almost immediately, and was not even a case of adopting measures to contain pension costs at current levels. The same changes in pension arrangements, needless to say, do not seem to have been imposed with the same rigour on occupants of the boardroom as well. Leadership obviously has its limits.
	The difficulty is that, once some companies choose to reduce costs by cutting the amount of money they provide for the pensions of their employees to achieve or restore a competitive advantage, other companies will be more likely to follow to keep their competitive position. In other words, there is a snowball effect, with only those companies that take a rather more enlightened, longer-term view of the situation and the value to them of a decent pension scheme for their employees standing firm against the trend.
	Another feature of many companies' approach to the running of their pension schemes is the enthusiasm with which they embraced the short-term attraction of pension fund contribution holidays, particularly for themselves, although not so often for their employees. Many companies and their expert financial advisers, in their projections, chose not to take proper heed of increasing life expectancy and their own warnings that the value of shares can go down as well as up, as can dividends and interest rates. A lack of financial acumen was equally shown by the life assurance companies, resulting in high and unsustainable final bonuses, which have had to be slashed dramatically in the past few years to compensate, to the detriment of those whose policies have recently matured.
	We were also told that a change in accounting arrangements had adverse effects on final salary occupational pension schemes as far as the balance sheet was concerned. Obviously though, it was not such an adverse effect that all companies concluded that they had to move away from final salary schemes.
	As we know, the most widely advanced explanation of the move away from final salary schemes has been tax changes by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, bearing in mind that the move away from final salary schemes had started before 1997, that it was inevitably going to have a snowball effect once it started as other companies sought to maintain or restore their competitive position, and that contribution holidays by companies continued after the tax changes, that explanation is less than convincing.
	I appreciate that my noble friend will almost certainly say that we must await the second and final report of the Pensions Commission, but I hope that serious consideration will be given to a requirement for companies to contribute a minimum percentage amount to providing pensions for their employees. I say that not just in the context of the approach of some companies in moving away from final salary schemes, but also in the context of the all-too-large number of companies that have never sought to provide for, or contribute towards, pensions for their staff. All too often those staff have also been doing the least well paid jobs, and are those for whom financial provision and security in their later years is a major worry.
	If companies want to give examples of their social responsibility, proper pension provision for their employees is one way. To opt out or never to have opted in is to transfer all responsibility for providing financial security above the state pension in later years from those who have financial resources—namely, companies and those who own them—to those who, all too often, do not, namely the individual employee.
	It is because I believe that an employer should contribute towards an adequate pension and should not change the rules adversely for existing staff that I welcome the Government's decision on public sector pensions. You do not measure the success of a negotiation simply on the basis of whether you achieve your opening position. The Government's agreement is in line with the more enlightened private sector firms, in that it increases the pensionable age for new entrants but protects the position of existing staff. I do not disagree with the decision that the pensionable age must be adjusted and that more flexible options should be provided for people to work longer if they so wish, to reflect the fact that life expectancy has increased and will continue to increase.
	The Government's decision on public sector pensions has of course been criticised by some highly paid national newspaper editors and business leaders who are on highly attractive remuneration and retirement packages. There is a word to describe people like that, but I shall refrain from using it. The reality is that a large percentage of people in the public sector are by no stretch of the imagination well paid and those at the top end of the pay structure receive nowhere near the remuneration package of their counterparts in the private sector.
	Finally, in the field of pension provision, the Government and the private sector, including the private sector pension companies, must continue to work together if we are to provide greater financial security for people in their later years. The need to encourage more saving for retirement is clear and further measures to provide that encouragement may well be needed. However, I hope that the Government will be as challenging and robust in that relationship as the private sector is with government. The mis-selling of pensions scandal of a few years ago—it was a scandal for which those responsible for the mis-selling have never been properly held accountable—arose because the government at the time were too trusting of a pensions industry that was badly let down by the activities of some of its number. I trust that no government in future will be quite so starry-eyed again in their necessary and, it is to be hoped, mutually beneficial working relationship with the private sector over pension provision arrangements.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, first, I profoundly apologise to the House for not being present at the beginning of the debate. I was unavoidably committed to speaking at the National Association of Pension Funds conference. I regret it the more because I have obviously missed some extraordinarily fascinating speeches. For those who have said kind things about me in my absence, it is clear that I should be absent more often. Thank you.
	I want to start by talking about a woman whom I met called Brenda, because I want to talk about women's pensions. I was having jabs for travel in a private clinic last week and Brenda asked me what I was working on. I said, "Pensions". "Oh", she said, "my pension is not worth ninepence". I said, "How come?" She said—she was fairly knowledgeable—"Well, I have had three children, so I get that HRP thing, but I have been in this job for 15 years but it will not get me any national insurance contributions". I said, "Why not?" She said: "I work for 15 hours a week and my employer will not increase the hours, but, in any case, I job share and have to be available the rest of the week in case the other person cannot turn up". Then she said: "In any case, my mum is getting a bit frail so I need to be around for her and I like the job".
	It meant that, at 57, she was going into retirement without a penny of basic state pension—her HRP is worthless because she had worked below the LEL—and not a penny of occupational pension. As far as I could tell between jabs, at every stage in her life she had made a decision that we would all applaud, but neither her waged work nor her unwaged work were recognised. By making those decent decisions at each stage, she had taken a pension hit.
	Let me invent a mythical twin brother called Brian, who, equally, had married, had three children, was possibly divorced and re-partnered and had a frail mum. Not one of those events in his life would have stopped him working or affected his pension, although they may have made him miserable. He would have worked full time and built up a full-time pension.
	In the minutes given me today, I want to make three propositions. The first is that unwaged work is as valuable as waged work. I know that my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley will have expressed that far more eloquently than I could; but Brenda, therefore, should have had a pension in her own right. Instead, we have a contributory system which is based on rights and responsibilities—something for something. But that is a myth because only 60 per cent of contributory years are paid for; the rest are credits. The result is that we get a system which, if you understand it, is complex and if you do not, is riddled with anomalies.
	(24)Yes, people get something for something, but, equally, many people get something for nothing: for example, a well-to-do man retiring at 60 years old gets five years of free contributions, which he may not need; a married woman will get a 60 per cent contribution from her husband's pension, whether she has children or whether she has worked. So they get something for nothing. Equally, there are those who get nothing for something—like Brenda. They may have run together two caring jobs of 20 hours each, but they get nothing. They may have done three cleaning jobs at 15 hours each, but they get nothing. The difference of course between the something-for-nothing and the nothing-for-something groups is that the something-for-nothing group is relatively well-to-do—and often men—and the nothing-for-something group is usually poorer, hardworking women who have been knocked all ways round the system. We could all list additional anomalies—just do not tempt me.
	My second proposition is that one would expect that if women have a shortfall in their basic state pension—as Brenda certainly would—they should be able to overcome it by rectifying it through an occupational pension. Yet, if Brenda had had a basic state pension of £50 a week and had put aside perhaps £8,000 savings into a pension pot to give her a private pension of £30 a week, she would have been not one penny better off than if she had not saved at all. The basic state pension, far from underpinning her second pension, would have undermined it. That is the system that we have constructed.
	My third proposition is—even if Brenda had got an occupational pension—to think about the characteristics that an occupational pension demands from women. They must save early from, say, 25 to 30 years old, just the time when they are likely to have children. They should save enough—15 per cent—yet that is the time when they have probably got a mortgage. They should save steadily, but they are likely to be interrupted by their caring responsibilities. And it is advised that women should get an employer's contribution—but women are far more likely to be in part-time jobs or in jobs where there is no pension attached. They should be able to do that for 35 years—come divorce, disaster or whatever happens in their personal lives. At the end of all that, they are told, they would have a return that is worth having—even though, as I have tried to argue, an incomplete basic state pension subverts the very pensions that they are trying to build. That is before I get to means-testing. On top of that, I would ask that they also hope for a return that will, given the stock markets, be on their side.
	Given all those risks and conditions that women cannot meet—certainty, saving enough, saving continuously for 35 years and not touching savings whatever happens—how many men, if they were lower-paid women in their 20s or 30s, would risk saving for an occupational pension, when they would not know whether it was worth having until the day after they retired? What sort of incentive is it to tell women to support themselves and to go into retirement with an adequate income when the basic state pension does not recognise their waged or unwaged work, when the interface between their basic state pension and their occupational pension undermines each, and when the very characteristics of the occupational pension scheme are devised for full-time work, not waged work, and not for the sort of life that Brenda will lead?
	It is as though we have set up—this is the sort of thing economists talk about—a game of snakes and ladders, in which Brian, as he goes around the board, will hit all the ladders—promotion, a new employer, a bonus—and Brenda, when she has a child, if anyone becomes ill or she takes on a caring responsibility, hits all the snakes. No sane public policy would develop a system in which what the state wants women to do—to work full time—is at odds with what women themselves and society want—for women to be able to work part time. We should recognise that part-time work is a resource for our society and that women should not be berated for doing it.
	I conclude by asking my noble friend not to tell us that things will be fine in 20 years' time because, arguing on the Henry Higgins principle of, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?", in 20 years' time they will be. That will not do because as women live longer, those caring responsibilities will increase rather than decrease. Moreover, I want men as well as women to be able to make the same sort of choices, balancing their work, their lives and their pension provision. So I hope that in the debate and arguments around Turner, we put the needs of two-thirds of our pensioners—women—at the forefront of the debate. I hope that all noble Lords will agree.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, I am happy to join the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, both personally and on behalf of these Benches, in his tributes to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We have just heard in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, what a doughty fighter she is for women and what a loss she is to the Front Bench.
	Although the noble Baroness did not put it in terms in her remarks, one can deduce from her speech that she was one of four Labour speakers in the debate, in addition to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, who has argued for a much higher basic state pension, particularly to help women. I include in that group, of course, my noble friend Lord Kirkwood. As we approach the Turner report, that is a powerful message which reflects the developing strength of the case on the other side of the House; indeed, in all quarters. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood certainly made an excellent and concise argument for a high, non means-tested basic state pension so as to aid women. We have also heard powerful speeches from three Conservative former Cabinet Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was on his usual coruscating form, if I may say, and as noble Lords will hear when I develop my arguments on public sector pensions, I agree with much of what he said. I refer also to the noble Lords, Lord Freeman, Lord Hodgson and Lord Hunt of Wirral, who all gave us insightful and powerful descriptions of the problems facing private sector pension schemes.
	I intend to concentrate on the public sector pension issue, partly because otherwise we would be rather anticipating what we think the Turner report is going to say. I do not believe that it will be a central issue of that report, but I do believe that it is something we must face up to now. I should declare my interest as a pension fund manager for almost 30 years, and a member of my own small self-administered pension scheme, which is rather like a SIPP; that is, a private pensions pot.
	With A-day for pension simplification looming next April, when I shall be 59 and thus almost of public sector pension age, I will probably decide to start drawing my own pension. How much will I need? I thought that I had better take a look and get a few quotes for what I can do with my pension pot. What about starting with the equivalent of an MP's maximum pension under the current House of Commons scheme? There an MP would retire now on £39,400 a year after 26 years and eight months' service, with an index-linked spouse's benefit at five-eighths of the MP's pension and unlimited indexation of pensions in payment. How much of my pension pot would I need to buy that pension from, say, the Prudential? I would need £1.2 million.
	What about a Permanent Secretary with, say, 38 years in the Civil Service and retiring today at 60 on an index-linked pension of £62,000 a year? The man from the Pru would charge £1.9 million for that one, or £3.8 million for a pension of £125,000 a year at the top end of the Permanent Secretary's range. Doctors in London—though not just in London because my wife is a doctor, although part time—quite normally now earn £100,000 a year. At the end of a normal working life, the pension value would be around £1.5 million on those prices. I did not even dare to get a quote for a judge's pension because I know how sensitive our friends in that area are about their contractual rights. However, I am delighted that the Government at last seem to appreciate the absurdity of introducing a Bill to exempt only judges from a new tax on pension rights which is to apply to everyone else in the United Kingdom.
	I give these examples not because I begrudge our dedicated public servants a decent pension—accrued pension rights must be respected and changes must have long lead times, but something like a 20-year lead time would be reasonable, not the 40 years the Government have now conceded—but because we must face up to the widening chasm between our two nations of pension provision. It is unfair and it will make it much harder for people to move between the public and private sectors over their careers. Not only will that be a loss to them, but a loss to the economy as a whole.
	There is a growing sense of injustice as the unfunded liabilities of public sector schemes grow and people in the private sector anticipate both worsening pension provision for themselves and higher taxes. Almost all of the public sector, whether in funded or unfunded schemes, enjoys what nowadays can only be described as gold standard pension provision—defined benefit schemes with no limitation of guaranteed price indexation of pensions in payment to 2.5 per cent a year, which the Government introduced in the Pensions Act for private sector schemes; no need to pay possibly crippling insurance premiums to the Pension Protection Fund, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, pointed out; and an open-ended guarantee of public sector pensions from taxpayers and council tax payers.
	The noble Lord, Lord Turner, whom I warmly welcome to the House—I remember him as a very bright young man on the economic affairs committee of the SDP many years ago—referred to the memorable statistic that the public sector employs 18 per cent of the country's workforce with 30 per cent of the pension rights. On the present rates of closure of good quality DB schemes in the private sector, only the directors' schemes—and here I agree very much with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—of some FTSE 100 companies and the main schemes of a few very big oil companies and banks will offer pensions remotely in the same league as the public sector in five years' time.
	There might have been a case for these levels of public sector benefits when comparable benefits were common and when public sector employees earned less than those in the private sector—but now that is just not so. The Office for National Statistics last week published the results of the 2005 annual survey of hours and earnings. Median full-time weekly earnings in the public sector were £475 a week in April this year, up by 4.1 per cent from a year ago. Median full-time private sector earnings were £413 a week, up only 2.8 per cent over the year. The public-private sector pay gap had widened to £62 a week from £53 a week last year.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is he not aware that the average income of a FTSE 250 chief executive is now £1 million-plus? Is he suggesting that is not different from the public sector?

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: Not at all, my Lords. With great respect to the noble Lord, I do not think he has been listening to the point I have made. I believe that pension benefits and pay at the top of the private sector are unfair, as I said when I referred to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. But I am now talking about the total figures, and one has to accept that many millions of people in the private sector have no pension provision at all, or very poor pension provision, which is a separate point.
	If we calculate the full cost of public sector provision properly, we could also give public servants genuine freedom of choice over their own pension provision. If we saw what the costs really were and the Government and employers had to pay a fair share of them, I believe that many employees in the public sector—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall—particularly among the low-paid, of whom, I accept, there are many, would prefer to have more pay and a less expensive pension option.
	New entrants to the public sector could be offered three main options in a constructive and reforming way ahead. First, they could keep the current gold standard provision, the true cost of which is probably something like 30 per cent of salary, spread between employee and employer.
	The second option could be a new kind of silver standard DB pension scheme, similar to some of the remaining good-quality schemes. It would involve limited indexation and some sharing of risk and the cost would probably be about 20 per cent. Thirdly, there could be a bronze standard DC scheme, much more like stakeholder schemes in the private sector, where the total cost would be about 10 per cent. Those would be the choices.
	With any of those schemes, the pension age would need to rise gradually to make them affordable. But we cannot expect millions of people to work until the age of 67 for their basic state pension if public sector workers continue to retire at 60 until halfway through the century. That is just not fair.
	Finally, I believe that the lead for public sector pension reform must come from the top. Members of another place may not welcome this advice from a Member of your Lordships' House, but I believe that both public and private sector employees will give a very rude answer if members of the most generous pension scheme in Britain in the House of Commons tell them that they have to pay more towards their pension and work longer to get it, if that is what they hear from Members of Parliament. The way to show Britain that we are serious about solving this crisis is for Parliament to put its own pensions house in order.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Fowler on achieving this debate against some opposition, muted though it was.
	The House was no doubt surprised to find the subject of pensions on the Order Paper just days before we are promised the second report of the Pensions Commission. Whether this Motion appearing on the Order Paper caused the leaks that we have seen in today's Financial Times is a moot point. Nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, said, it is as a background for that report that this debate is being held. The noble Lord laid into the previous Conservative government, but I remind him that this Government have now had eight years to act. However many recriminations we have heard—I shall make a few—we should remember that we are where we are now, as the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, has just said. Thus, I was pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, majored on that. Earlier in the debate there was a reference to beds of nails, and I observe that not one or two but four fakirs are speaking in this debate.
	As many speakers have said, the Government are in a mess on the pensions issue. The result of the debate on the Terrorism Bill in another place last week has been widely remarked upon in the newspapers. But I regard the subject of the health and wealth of the nation's retired people to be even more important, and I am glad to know that, since I took this job, hardly a day has gone by without the thorny question of pensions being covered in one newspaper or another—not that any of them have any ideas as to what to do about the problem. However, they all accept that in 1997 the Government inherited the best pension position in Europe.
	Today, eight years later, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, pointed out, we are in the position so ably described by your Lordships today. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, that a consensus is required. But, as I shall say later, it takes two to tango. However, it is not true to say that the Government have done nothing. Last year's Pensions Act set up the insurance scheme for occupational pension schemes, known as the PPF. There are inevitable problems with the annual premium levels that such schemes should pay, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson spoke vehemently about the unfairness that is currently proposed. That said, I am sure that they will be sorted out in time.
	In addition, during the passage of the Pensions Bill, the Government were forced by a threatened Back-Bench rebellion to set up a fund to give a small pension to retirees who had lost all their pension entitlement because their firms and final salary schemes had gone bust. Considering what they have missed out on, that is far from generous. Both these schemes help a little but do nothing for the myriad of people who have only their state pension, with or without pension credit, to rely on in their old age, which is lasting longer and longer. More curious in the Act was the provision of a lump sum option for members of the workforce who choose to carry on working beyond their retirement age and do not draw the state pension. That, of course, is an alternative to the enhanced weekly amount that the Conservative government brought in for such people.
	I railed against that commutation at the time on the basis that pensions are a means of saving for retirement and are not intended to build up a "pot" which can be spent on anything—a holiday or paying for a new kitchen or whatever.
	The only thing that can be said for that part of the Act is that it might—just might—act as an incentive for people to extend their working lives. We are now told that people must extend their working lives. When she was Prime Minister, my noble friend Lady Thatcher coined the phrase, "There is no alternative"; indeed, on this issue, there is not.
	That brings me to joined-up government, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Fowler. It was around the time that the Bill was enacted that we had the Budget which, among myriad other matters, capped personal pension funds at £1.5 million. Any amount over that figure was taxed at 55 per cent. Of course, that affects only a small number of people. Shortly afterwards came the election and the gracious Speech, which proposed a Bill to take judges' pensions out of this regime. Last week, it was quietly dropped, infuriating the judges, who suffer a serious pay cut when they are appointed but can afford, during their time at the Bar, to build up a large pension pot. It was a proposal to divide the rich, and I am not surprised that we are where we are. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has stamped heavily on the toes of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and those with large pension pots.
	Another effect of the election was for the Prime Minister to move the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to the DTI, but asking him to retain control of public sector pensions. A few months later, he had several meetings with representatives of the teaching profession, the Civil Service and the NHS, and committed the Government to allowing those members already in work to continue to their current retirement age—usually, but not universally, 60—while insisting that new employees work until they are 65.
	Can the Minister explain how overall public sector reform is intended to be implemented when the Deputy Prime Minister insists that his department is considered separately from the ongoing negotiations? How are reforms ever to be carried out if every time a strike is threatened, the Government return to square one? This does not appear to me to be joined-up government. And if the Government cannot persuade the public sector unions' members of the need to work until they are 65, how on earth are they to convince them to work until they are 67?
	The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, whose expertise on pensions I recognise and welcome, does not seem to realise that the contract is not really being torn up. The existing public service employees have made their contributions on the basis on which they joined first their work and then their scheme. If they worked longer, it goes without saying that they will receive more in retirement.
	Two other points arise. Why are the Government treating the public sector employees differently from private sector employees currently in work? They are encouraging private sector workers to work more and retire later to prepare for their retirement. However, they do not dare to say the same to public sector workers. Of course, certain jobs, such as those in fire fighting or the Armed Forces, must be taken into special consideration, but that need not stop pension policy being pursued equitably across all sectors.
	What does such a policy do for recruitment in the public sector? I shall not go into detail, but the Government are not even applying the same standards of transparency to themselves as they apply to private firms. The Institute of Economic Affairs estimation of the Government's public sector pension liability is nearly twice as high as the Treasury's.
	The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has acknowledged that it is unfair for public sector workers to enjoy greater benefits than the private sector workers who fund them. Nevertheless, he has failed to follow through any reforms that will reduce the problem and is now proposing public sector reforms that will not be completed until after 2044. Why is he not following the well trodden and acceptable path that the previous Conservative government introduced for extending women's working life, another thing we are led to believe the Turner report will say?
	When I left school, I could realistically expect to live until I was 77. Today, I can reasonably expect to remain alive until I am 81. In other words, for every 10 years that pass, I can foresee living for one extra year. The need for people to save and the Exchequer to have an achievable commitment to state pensions is therefore clear. The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, and my noble friend Lord Trenchard raised that matter, but that is not the only problem that the Government have visited upon us.
	The Prime Minister stated in February that he did not want the majority of people to be on means-tested pensions, but his policies have been predicted to achieve exactly that. Some 46 per cent of pensioners are subject to means testing now and that will rise to 64 per cent by 2025. When £1 of income from a private pension can lead to a 40p drop in one's state pension, is it any wonder that many people do not consider private pensions worth their while to save for?
	Alas, time does not allow me to give my views on personal and occupational pensions mentioned by so many of your Lordships today. However, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that pension schemes had no option but to take pension holidays—the Inland Revenue demanded it at the time.
	I hope that the forthcoming report of the Pensions Commission will be fully and completely costed, because from the leaks that we have heard and seen, its recommendations are potentially unaffordable. The important thing is that the report should spur the Government on to the necessary action and soon—not, as the Prime Minister has suggested, in the next Parliament.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for initiating this debate, which has been interesting and lively. I did not realise that he regarded my press releases as unhelpful. They were always meant to be helpful just as I am sure his speech today was meant to be helpful to the Government. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hollis. I paid tribute to her when I first took this job by saying that she would be a hard act to follow. From the speech that she gave today, noble Lords will agree with that sentiment. I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. He was a splendid chair of the Select Committee in another place and I look forward to the many conversations that we will have about the Child Support Agency as well as pensions. I have to sit down at 4.27, so I shall try to pick up some of the main points from the debate. I was asked some detailed questions and I will undertake to write to noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, who asked a number of specific points that I would like to answer.
	Listening to the debate, the one thing that struck me was that, while we are clearly facing a considerable pension challenge, we should be wary about talking up the challenge in terms of an absolute crisis. First, we should start by recognising that many people will live a long and I hope happy life. Secondly, as the Pensions Commission made clear in its first report, which is the only report that I have seen—

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, obviously the Minister has not read today's Financial Times.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I try not to.
	The Pensions Commission's first report made clear that the implications for pensioner income will be more serious in 20 to 25 years' time than in the next 10, although I fully accept the warning that my noble friend made about the position of many women. As my noble friend Lord Lea suggested, we face demographic change, but so does every developed country and the scale of change that we face is less than in most countries in Europe. I am not complacent; but there are some strengths to our current system that we must build upon rather than build the problem up into a crisis. Meeting older people, as I have done in a number of sessions to talk about pensions, actually makes them feel that they are a problem. That is wrong. We must look at older people as an asset to society. In all that we do in relation to pensions or encouraging people to work longer, we need to recognise the strength and contribution that older people can make in our society.
	If I could summarise the comments made on the Benches opposite about the Government's record, I would have to say that they were not entirely complimentary. But I want to put that into context; surely, the root of our private pensions challenge lies back in the early 1990s. We all remember the mis-selling scandals, which started to create an air of mistrust in pensions—and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was rather quiet on that subject. There are a number of reasons for the recent problems besetting defined benefit pension schemes, but we cannot ignore the stock market fall, which is worldwide rather than just a British phenomenon.
	I realise that a number of noble Lords here have taken part in pensions debates over a number of years, and clearly the withdrawal of payable tax credits is something that noble Lords have debated on a number of occasions. The Pensions Policy Institute, which we all respect, has estimated that the impact is significantly less than £5 billion a year. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Young said, whatever the short-term effect of the measures on pension schemes might have been, it was small compared to the other factors that I have already mentioned, such as stock market trends. Surely, we cannot ignore the wider package of corporation tax reforms that took place at the same time.
	We should not underestimate, either, what the Government have achieved for pensioners today. Again, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hollis. The fact is that, over the past eight years, pensioners' incomes have grown, not only in real terms but faster than earnings. Since 1996, pensioners' incomes have risen by 21 per cent, compared to 13 per cent for earnings, adjusted for price growth. I do not want to be complacent, but surely noble Lords must acknowledge the progress that has been made.
	Noble Lords have mentioned pension credit, which has made a huge difference to many pensioners. We now pay pension credit to 3.3 million pensioners in 2.7 million households, with an average award of £40 a week. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and assure her that we are working as hard as we can to increase uptake; but we should not ignore the huge beneficial impact that it has had on many older people.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his constructive speech, said that basic state pension is the core of all pension policy, and there is much in that. My noble friend Lady Turner unsurprisingly made a plea for more generous basic state pensions; anyone who heard the riveting debates that she took part in with the late Lady Castle will know of her strong passion in this area.
	The emphasis that the Government have given since we came to power has been to tackle pensioner poverty. The approach taken was to address and target resources at those who most needed them; simply increasing basic state pension would not have helped those without full records—a point that my noble friend Lady Hollis so persuasively made—and only 30 per cent of women reaching state pension age have a full contribution record. So increasing the basic state pension to the guaranteed credit level, for which a number of noble Lords have argued and for which a number of organisations have argued outside this House, if earnings were uprated in future, would cost £8 billion immediately and an additional £82 billion—2.6 per cent of GDP—by 2050, which is a very large sum of money. Clearly the Government's approach up to now has been to say that we should use the pension credit to ensure that the poorest pensioners share in the growing wealth of the nation while keeping spending on pensioners as a percentage of GDP broadly the same in future as it is today. Of course, we shall have to see what transpires from the Pensions Commission, but that is the Government's current view.
	A number of noble Lords referred to the demographic changes that have taken place. It is true that whenever forecasts by government and the actuary are made, in practice they turn out to be under-optimistic. No doubt we should rejoice at that, as the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, suggested. For instance, in 1980 decisions about public pension policy were being made on the basis of estimates that male life expectancy from age 65 in the year 2000 would be about 14 years. Now we have reached 2005, the estimate is 19 years. Looking forward, the current official base case forecast is 24 years of life expectancy for a man reaching 65 in 2050. However, many experts believe this will be revised upwards significantly as new information becomes available; indeed, figures in the high twenties are quite possible, and I agree with the comments made by a number of noble Lords about the need for this to be kept under active and regular review.
	A number of points were made about the importance of savings with which I very much agree. I was interested in the pension health check mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Freeman. As a young person, I would have welcomed that. The Government recognise that part of encouraging people to save and go into pensions when they have the ability to do so is to improve financial literacy. That involves schools, and I know that they are doing what they can to increase financial literacy. Alongside that, we also have a programme that provides both state and private sector pension forecasts. More than 6 million people, including me, have received such a forecast. I think it was helpful, and I know that many people who received it found it so. We are also working to develop an online pension planner that will provide the sort of information that the noble Lord is seeking. Individual pension schemes could also do much more in that regard.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made a point about annuities. We will consider issues like that in the light of what the Pensions Commission has to say.
	I move to a somewhat contentious matter: the subject of public pensions. Noble Lords opposite were critical of what the Government have achieved, but they understated the fact that the unions have agreed that, for new entrants in the public sector schemes for the Civil Service, the NHS and teachers, the retirement age will be increased to 65. That is a useful achievement. We always made clear that public sector pensions would be reformed, and that we needed to do that on the basis of affordability as well as what is needed to recruit and retain.
	We had always intended to provide existing staff with plenty of notice of the pension age change in order to allow them to adjust their retirement plans accordingly. Indeed, the agreement that has now been reached will be helpful to the condition and climate for pension change in the future. It has been agreed with the unions that the full savings we originally planned from reform will still be met. The question of how those savings are to be arrived at will be considered by the schemes when drawing up their further proposals on scheme design. This is a matter that has been discounted by many commentators because scheme-by-scheme negotiations will also consider whether schemes will move to a career-average basis, and all aspects of reform other than the pension age question.
	The agreement will result in substantial savings—an estimated £13 billion to the taxpayer in net present-value terms. It is a sustainable solution for the long term, and noble Lords opposite have underestimated the achievement of the Government in reaching that agreement.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, why therefore did the Government say in their 2003 White Paper, which I have here, that they would also apply a higher retirement age to existing staff?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, they set out a position, and there have been negotiations. I am saying that the outcome has been of great significance. At the end of the day, for new people going into the public sector schemes from next year, the retirement age will be 65. Although the noble Lord refuted the intervention by my noble friend Lady Turner, I do not see that that stance is different from the position adopted by many private sector schemes which retained their current provision for existing members but changed from a defined benefit to a defined contribution scheme for new entrants.
	I have two minutes left in which to speak. I acknowledge the points made by my noble friend Lady Hollis on women's pensions. She is absolutely right to express her concerns in that regard and we must consider them very seriously. My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley made some very important points about carers. As regards the Pensions Commission, I have not read today's Financial Times.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I tell noble Lords from this Dispatch Box that I have genuinely been engaged on other departmental business and have not read today's Financial Times. I entirely reject the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that the Pensions Commission was a device to avoid the Government facing controversy over pensions during the election period. The Pensions Commission has done a marvellous job. Many people have acknowledged the quality of its reports. Its work has also engendered a very healthy public debate. Perhaps not everyone on the No. 50 bus in Birmingham is talking about pensions but there is no doubt that many people are. I do not know what is in the Pensions Commission report but I assure noble Lords that I hope in future to work with all colleagues here on a consensus basis. If we are to get this matter right, we have to work together, and we must get it right for the sake of our children, our children's children and future generations.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate for their speeches. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pitkeathley and Lady Greengross. I also thank my noble friends Lord Freeman, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Trenchard for their contributions. I thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson who set out the plight of the private sector and trustees. As he said, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, was not present to hear the Minister winding up the debate but that is cancelled out by the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, who was not present at the beginning of the debate, is here for the wind-up. I thank her for that.
	I address my next remarks to the noble Lord, Lord Lea, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to his new position but I did not find his reply on public sector pensions at all convincing. I have to tell him that the policy to increase the retirement age in the public sector for existing staff was not my policy but the Government's. The Government have now retreated from that policy. As the noble Lords, Lord Kirkwood and Lord Oakeshott, and my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale said, the demographic message is beyond challenge: that means tackling the age of retirement. However—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in particular—you cannot change it for one group and not for another. You cannot change it for the private sector and not for the public sector. That is unfair and unjust.
	We will come back to these issues with passion. I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate for their contributions. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Healthy Start Scheme and Welfare Food (Amendment) Regulations 2005

Lord Warner: rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 3 November be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee and 14th Report from the Merits Committee].

Lord Warner: My Lords, the Welfare Food Scheme has played a vital role in providing a valuable safety net for pregnant women and families since it was introduced back in 1940. It is currently serving about 560,000 low income and disadvantaged households. But it now needs updating better to meet the nutritional requirements of present-day families.
	In discussions on the enabling powers contained in the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003, several concerns were raised about the changes proposed to the Welfare Food Scheme. We have tried to take on board the comments made at that time and have reflected them in the proposals we are now making. For example, we are proposing to introduce the reforms in two stages to test the scheme prior to full implementation across Great Britain.
	That is taking up very much the points made during the debate on the 2003 Act by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker.
	We propose to implement Healthy Start in Devon and Cornwall in the first instance. During that first phase, beneficiaries in Devon and Cornwall will receive Healthy Start vouchers, while beneficiaries in the rest of Great Britain will continue to receive Welfare Food Scheme milk tokens. Existing beneficiaries in Devon and Cornwall will be automatically transferred onto the new scheme to ensure seamless provision. Beneficiaries in phase 1 will receive with their vouchers Healthy Start communications providing information about the scheme and useful hints and tips on eating a balanced, healthy diet. Those materials will be part of a larger communications strategy developed to support the introduction of the new scheme. As part of phase 1, we propose to remove provision of low-cost infant formula via the NHS across the whole of Great Britain to families with children under the age of one who receive specified tax credits and have a family income under a certain threshold. NHS clinics in Devon and Cornwall will also cease the provision of all infant formula from the start of phase 1, which will support the department's commitment to increasing the number of mothers who initiate breastfeeding. It is also our intention to remove the exchange of infant formula, as part of the scheme, from all NHS clinics from the start of phase 2. We expect phase 2 of Healthy Start to be rolled out across the rest of Great Britain later in 2006, taking into account the feedback from the evaluation of phase 1.
	In the main, beneficiaries currently receiving Welfare Food Scheme milk tokens will also be entitled to Healthy Start vouchers. The scheme will continue to provide, in phase 1, vouchers to all pregnant women and children under five in low-income families on certain benefits—income support, income-based jobseeker's allowance and child tax credit. But we intend to remove entitlement for those pregnant beneficiaries currently receiving tokens because they are in a family receiving pension credit (guarantee credit)—that applies to fewer than 200 women—from phase 1 because of the greater value of this benefit. We also intend to remove entitlement for the small number of disabled children aged five to 16 years not in relevant education as a result of their disability, but we have made a commitment to provide a one-off goodwill payment to those disabled children. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy concluded that there was no nutritional justification for continuing that element of the scheme.
	In contrast, we will provide Healthy Start vouchers to all pregnant under 18 year-olds regardless of their income, because we know that teenagers' diets are often nutritionally poor. Supporting young pregnant women during such an important time can only improve the health outcomes for both mother and baby. From phase 2, we intend to reduce the age limit for the scheme from age five to age four. We have not reduced the age range during phase 1 as that would create inconsistencies and inequalities between those receiving Healthy Start vouchers in Devon and Cornwall and those receiving milk tokens throughout the rest of Great Britain. As a result, we can increase the support that we give to families with the youngest and most vulnerable children by providing double vouchers to most families with children under the age of one.
	The new scheme also recognises that premature babies may need extra nutritional support, and so double vouchers will be paid. We propose that the value of each voucher should be £2.80 per week, but regularly reviewed, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in the passage of the 2003 Act. Beneficiaries will receive vouchers in advance in four-weekly cycles, and the vouchers will normally have a four-week expiry date. In circumstances where a backdated payment is made, vouchers may be issued with a longer expiry date. Regulation 8(2) allows for an expiry date of up to six months.
	During previous debates on the changes, concerns were expressed, by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Chan, about the introduction of an application process. Those concerns have been considered but we still regard the application process as an important aspect of the scheme, as it forges closer links with the NHS and the very people who are likely to need the most support. The contact will be between beneficiaries and health professionals, which I think was also supported by a number of speakers in debate on the 2003 Act.
	The application process will create opportunities for health professionals to provide information and advice about healthy eating as an integral part of the scheme. Only new beneficiaries will need to complete an application form, to be signed by a health professional, as existing beneficiaries will be automatically transferred to the new scheme. Under the current scheme, pregnant women already complete an application form, so this is an extension of that existing process. We would expect the application form to be signed by either a midwife or a health visitor, as they are most likely to be in regular contact with the beneficiary. That process very much fits in with the current role of midwives and health visitors, as they currently sign applications for the Sure Start maternity grant. We have consulted the Royal College of Midwives and the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association in establishing the requirements.
	We intend to develop and deliver a package of health professional training sessions, as well as other supporting materials, to set Healthy Start in the context of wider health advice and guidance. But I should make it clear that we certainly do not expect health professionals to establish whether a potential beneficiary is entitled to vouchers in any way.
	To help and support beneficiaries in making the right dietary choices, we want to make the scheme more flexible by increasing the range of foods under the scheme and providing a fixed-value voucher. Although we intend to expand the range of foods under the scheme, we have kept it relatively simple at this stage, including fresh fruit and fresh vegetables as well as liquid cows' milk and infant formula. That is to avoid confusion at the point of sale—particularly, for example, with frozen vegetables, which could include items such as frozen chips that for obvious reasons we would not want to promote through the scheme. We will consider the range of foods and the "5 a day" initiative as part of the evaluation of phase 1.
	We will actively target retailers currently registered with the Welfare Food Scheme, and will seek to recruit further retailers to participate in Healthy Start to ensure that beneficiaries have the widest access possible to a variety of local retailers, including initiatives such as box schemes and farmers' markets. To participate in the scheme, retailers need to supply only at least one of the food types under the scheme—for example, milkmen who stock only milk for their rounds. Retailers will be required to complete and sign a simple application form, which includes a declaration as an anti-fraud measure highlighting to retailers their responsibilities under the scheme. Once registered, retailers will receive a registration pack containing a handy window sticker and a retailer quick reference guide, as well as their first claim form.
	The process for reimbursing retailers is designed to be straightforward to ensure unnecessary burdens are not imposed, particularly on smaller businesses. Vouchers will be reimbursed at full face value, so the current and unpopular retailer deduction will cease. That means that, for every £2.80 voucher exchanged by a retailer, £2.80 is received back.
	Every scheme is vulnerable to fraud but we have considered carefully the concerns expressed previously by, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, about the potential for abuse of the scheme. We are working with NHS counter-fraud specialists to minimise fraudulent activity, including the establishment of a common Healthy Start contractor database.
	Concerns have been previously raised by the dairy industry about expanding the range of foods. We have met several key stakeholders to discuss the changes we are proposing and have agreed to review the scheme and its processes as part of the phase 1 evaluation. But we must reform the scheme if we are more fully to meet the nutritional requirements of those pregnant women and young children who most need it. Beneficiaries may prefer to continue getting just milk with the new vouchers, rather than using the vouchers for fruit and vegetables—that is their choice.
	We will undertake a rapid evaluation of the impact and processes for phase 1 before the scheme is rolled out nationwide. I think that that was recommended by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Howarth of Breckland, in debates in 2003. I commend the regulations to the House, and beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 3 November be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee and 14th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Warner.)

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the regulations, which establish phase 1 of the new Healthy Start scheme in Devon and Cornwall and amend previous regulations. The Welfare Food Scheme has been in place since the beginning of the Second World War and, however useful its purpose, it is right that it should be reviewed in the light of the vast knowledge and experience that we now have on nutrition and vitamins.
	The Government have chosen Devon and Cornwall for this six-month to eight-month trial because of their geographical isolation and demographics in terms of urban centres, medium to small towns and rural villages, and it is understandable why these factors make it a sensible place for the trial. But by their own admission in the Explanatory Notes the Government recognise that there are only small pockets of deprivation in that area. Why did the Government not consider a metropolitan area to be more suitable, or why not trial the scheme in both a rural and a metropolitan area so that the findings could be compared and contrasted?
	The current Welfare Food scheme is limited to milk and infant formula. While the scheme's aims of broadening the foodstuffs available and providing greater access to those foods through a fixed-value voucher are worthy, we have concerns. Under the new proposals, all the value of the voucher could be spent on fruit and vegetables. We argued during the passage of the Bill that a portion of the voucher should be ring-fenced for milk. There are many worries that children will lose out on the nutritional value of milk. Will the Minister comment on that and on the strong concerns expressed by dairymen about the knock-on effect on their deliveries? Will he explain how the vouchers will account for the considerable variation in the price of fruit and vegetables around the country, the seasonality of prices and the impact of inflationary rises and falls?
	As part of the scheme and in line with the Government's drive to encourage breastfeeding, provision of infant formula will be withdrawn. I am a strong advocate of breastfeeding, the benefits of which are many and well-chronicled. It is particularly important if there is a history of allergies in the family. Breastfed babies receive protection from infections and illness, and there is the added benefit that mothers who breastfeed are less at risk from a number of conditions.
	However, not all women can breastfeed. It can be horribly painful and some babies just do not thrive. There was an article in the Sunday Times this weekend by Sarah Smith, who was so embarrassed that she was bottle-feeding her baby, due to her daughter being a lazy sucker, that she pretended to breastfeed. The last thing we should do is somehow to demonise mothers who, for whatever reason, cannot breastfeed. Nor must we make them feel that in any way they are inferior mothers or that they are letting their children down. Surely, the best way to encourage breastfeeding is through education. Is it sensible to withdraw infant formula? Could that not leave some babies undernourished?
	The scheme requires a healthcare professional to sign the application form, with the aim of forging closer links with the NHS, so families have access to advice on diet, nutrition and other health issues. Yet during the consultation, as the Minister mentioned, many NHS practitioners felt that mandatory contact would stigmatise the NHS. I am still not sure why the Government decided to go along that route. Will it not add considerably to an already overburdened NHS?
	I do not ask such questions to be difficult or to oppose the regulations, with which we are in broad agreement, but to raise genuine areas of concern and to probe the intentions behind government's thinking.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, there were happy occasions during the passage of the primary legislation when we debated this subject at length with the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who gave her customary full and detailed replies. I am delighted to see these regulations before us.
	However, it is fair to ask one or two questions about the operation of the scheme. Referring to those debates, the Minister will know that we were concerned that a scheme for so long successful in its universal coverage of children and mothers was about to be disrupted. Therefore, it is beholden on us to test some of the assumptions behind it.
	The first point is the value of the voucher, at £2.80. I shall assume that that is based on the price of milk at the moment. Given that fruit and vegetables are now included and, as the noble Baroness said, there are variations by region and by price, will that be monitored? In his introduction, the Minister said that the Government were committed to ensuring that the scheme will be updated. How and when will that uprating happen? Will there be an annual uprating, and will it be in line with inflation?
	The scheme as the Minister outlined it will apply to children up to the age of four, not five as with the current milk scheme. Is that because there is an assumption that children will go to school and that their nutritional needs will be met in school at the age of five? Perhaps the noble Lord can confirm whether that is right.
	It seems strange to have chosen to pilot the scheme in Devon and Cornwall, as the noble Baroness said. I am sure that there are good reasons for doing so, but to pilot a scheme like this in an area where there are so few members of black and minority ethnic communities is strange. In the roll-out of the scheme—in future it will be rolled out to other areas—will its effect on minority communities be closely monitored?
	What will the Government do to ensure that there are enough registered food outlets available within an area, particularly in rural areas, to ensure the scheme is workable in the way that he envisages? If there are not enough outlets, what other proposals will be put in place? The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned that the scheme is confined solely to cows' milk. Some children are allergic to cows' milk and, therefore, depend on goats' milk or soya milk. There is a perfectly good nutritional reason for those alternatives to be considered, so perhaps the noble Lord would say why not.
	Regulation 13(2) states that there will be no refunds when someone presents at a food outlet but does not obtain food to the full value of the voucher. Why is that so? Regulation 13(3) says that if retailers do not have goods available, they will be able to write a note. Does that mean that the system will work like medical prescriptions, when if a pharmacist cannot supply a prescription in full, he writes a note for the person to present on a subsequent occasion.
	Perhaps the Minister can explain why children of asylum seekers are not to be included in this scheme. I suspect that he will say that children of asylum seekers and pregnant asylum-seeking women will be dealt with by other authorities. If professionals with knowledge of and concerned about children's welfare and health are concentrated in this scheme, why should asylum seekers not be in touch with those people?
	Will the Government keep under review the diversity of the retailers that participate in the scheme? When we discussed this matter under the primary legislation, there was a fear that the scheme may become a means whereby retailers get themselves into a monopoly position with the NHS and have undue influence over the provision of essential food to children. I would be grateful if the noble Lord would answer those questions.

Lord Chan: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Motion. I shall focus on three issues. First, it is good to know that the scheme will soon be up and running, but I share the concern of the noble Baronesses who spoke for the two opposition parties that the choice of Devon and Cornwall is not particularly helpful to some disadvantaged communities, since the majority of them are in metropolitan areas, as well as the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, regarding diverse ethnic minority communities. Therefore, will the pilot project be for a limited time—six months or a year—before it is introduced nationally? That would be important.
	Secondly, I congratulate the Government on looking at Schedule 3, on Healthy Start foods. It is a Healthy Start diet, but one or two things seem to be missing. I agree that we should, wherever possible, encourage breastfeeding, and I shall return to that in a moment. However, regarding milk, since we are thinking of children up to the age of four or five, I am surprised that yoghurt and other such foods are not mentioned. They would be very helpful for young children as they are easy to eat and digest and are also very healthy.
	Regarding breastfeeding, the purpose of the scheme is to assist people who are disadvantaged therefore journalists on the Sunday Times may not be representative of that group. However, if we are to make breastfeeding successful, we need more health visitors and midwives to assist young mothers, as in the case highlighted, to breastfeed. I am concerned that the number of health visitors and midwives is not increasing. Also, the redesign of primary care trusts will make such health professionals even more difficult to find. So how, on the one hand, can we say that we are recommending and encouraging breastfeeding, but on the other hand, the people who will assist young mothers will not be available in the numbers required?
	Thirdly, there is the matter of outlets. In metropolitan areas where there are disadvantaged communities, outlets are limited. Therefore, will lesser known shops and private shopkeepers be given the opportunity to register as outlets for the scheme?
	Finally, there is the issue of review and monitoring. Not only is fraud likely, but there is also the possibility that bad habits will start if we do not review the scheme regularly. If the vouchers increase in value, they may not necessarily be used on the foods recommended for a Healthy Start diet.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I shall respond briefly to the points raised in this debate on these important regulations. On the alleged new burdens on midwives and health visitors, they, after all, already see pregnant women now and are best placed to give advice about a healthy diet, which is the purpose of this scheme. We have discussed these issues with their professional bodies. It is worth bearing in mind that, if I may gently say to the noble Lord, Lord Chan, the number of midwives is increasing at a time when the birth rate has been falling. So these issues have been actively considered.
	Why Devon and Cornwall? I shall not reply "Why not?". The selection of Devon and Cornwall for phase 1 was based on three main criteria. First, it is geographically self-contained, with borders that do not cut across large urban communities; secondly, it includes a mixture of current approaches to the supply of infant formula through the Welfare Food Scheme; and, thirdly, it includes both urban and rural areas and pockets of deprivation as well as larger identifiable disadvantaged populations. There will be some degree of involvement in the scheme by people from black and minority ethnic groups. We will of course closely monitor that after wider roll-out of the scheme.
	On the issue of the value of the voucher—why £2.80?—the amount equates to the average cost of seven pints of liquid milk provided through the existing Welfare Food Scheme. It was decided not to vary this value from the average cost of seven pints of milk to ensure equity with people on the Welfare Food Scheme outside Devon and Cornwall. But, as part of the evaluation of phase 1, the voucher value and the quantity of Healthy Start foods purchased with it are intended to be examined.
	Will the voucher amount be increased at the rate of inflation? We intend to regularly review the value of vouchers and we will increase it in line with the increase in the retail prices of foods available through the Healthy Start scheme. Picking up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Chan, we will of course look at the types of food that are appropriate.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, raised the issue of babies who do not feed well or who may not be able to tolerate cows' milk. Healthy Start, like the Welfare Food Scheme, is designed to meet the nutritional needs of healthy pregnant women, babies and children. If a baby has a specific health problem with the mother, a health professional should be consulted, and specialist infant formulas can be prescribed through the NHS if there is a clear medical need for them. NHS prescriptions are, of course, free for all children.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked why asylum seekers were not included under the Healthy Start scheme. They are not included because their needs are currently met by the National Asylum Support Service—and this principle has been reinforced by the High Court. We are keeping NASS informed of our plans for implementation of the Healthy Start scheme, so that it can review the support it gives to asylum seekers who are pregnant or have young children, and modify it as appropriate.
	Soya-based products are excluded from the scheme on the basis of expert medical advice that they are not as nutritionally adequate as cows' milk. Soya drinks are low in energy, compared with cows' milk, and lack several vitamins and minerals. Never let it be said that I do not bring education to this House.
	The issue of retailer monopoly was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. Registration is open to any retailer selling one or more relevant products, and we will encourage the widest range of retailers to take part, to provide choice and greater accessibility.
	Vouchers, in most instances, must be exchanged for goods to their full value in order to ensure that the voucher is exchanged for only Healthy Start foods. Regulation 13 applies especially to milkmen, who may take the voucher and provide milk throughout the week. We understand the concerns of the dairy industry. There is already a decline in the number of milk-round men in general outside the changes proposed by the Welfare Food Scheme, but we will keep things under control.
	I believe that the changes set out in these regulations will help us better to support the nutritional needs of low-income families. On those points I have not been able to respond to I will write to noble Lords. In the mean time, I commend the regulations to the House, and I hope that we can approve them.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Avian Flu

Baroness Byford: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether adequate safeguards are in place to deal with a potential outbreak of avian flu.
	My Lords, my intention in seeking this debate was to put an end to the scare-mongering that has been going on in the press by eliciting the facts; to obtain an accurate guide of where we are now; to examine what happened hitherto to learn from the mistakes that have been made; and to point the way forward. We much regret the announcement of two further deaths in China.
	I am very grateful to all noble Lords who will speak in this short debate today. I shall listen with interest to their contributions and I know that they will cover different aspects of the work within Defra and the Department of Health. I am sure that our debate will underline the need for those two departments to work closely together.
	On 26 October, the Government made a Statement which was repeated in this House. The virus H5N1 had been identified in a quarantine centre. We now know that the original source was not a parrot, as was originally claimed, nor a second parrot, but one or more of the other birds from which samples were examined simultaneously. The Statement also referred to the deaths of some birds before 16 October. On 22 October, an investigation into the sequence of events leading to the deaths was begun. Of those dead birds, 32 were in the freezer awaiting collection by a veterinary inspector. They had been there for at least a week.
	The Statement that we heard that day from the Minister covered several issues, which I shall slightly abbreviate. The quarantine centre was holding consignments of exotic birds from both Taiwan and Suriname. Since July, there had been increasing reports of outbreaks of avian flu—influenza—in wild birds. We also recognise that the contingency plan for avian flu was laid before Parliament this July. Following the Statement, the EU banned the import of live birds until 30 November. I understand that that has now been extended to 31 January, which is welcome. Methods of increasing vigilance against illegal imports were now being examined. Most bird fairs, markets and shows were banned and a register of all commercial poultry producers would be introduced.
	They were fine words and, had the problem not worsened since July, I may have been able to accept that there was no urgency. In fact, it was four months from that July until we had the Statement. It might be said that Defra dithered. I am sure that the Minister would not agree. So I must ask him why it was that four months passed before basic precautionary strategies were in place. Why was a ban on live imports not put in place straight away? Why was not great emphasis put on stopping illegal imports? Why was not a register of commercial flocks put in place at that stage? I understand that, as the Minister told me on that day, there is no such register. Why wait four months when the outbreak was continuing to spread?
	Today gives the Minister a chance to update us on the measures taken and to reassure us that there has been a thorough investigation into that quarantine centre and into the regulation and control of quarantine. I am especially concerned that all quarantine centres will by now have been inspected by a competent person; that surveillance at Heathrow and any other authorised entry point will have been strengthened; and that anyone caught smuggling live birds into this country will be arrested, charged and prosecuted and that the officials at the country of origin have been informed and requested to discourage further such traffic.
	On 14 November, I put a Written Question to the noble Lord asking how many illegally imported exotic birds had been seized each year from 2002–05. In 2004, 2,922 birds were seized. How many arrests have been made? How many successful prosecutions have taken place? What is the maximum fine that can be given?
	I should like to share some figures elicited on 7 November from Ben Bradshaw by my honourable friend Jim Paice. The EU-wide computer system—TRACES—reported imports in 2004 of 67,480 captive birds, 98 per cent of which—66,586—came into the United Kingdom. In 2005, to date, we have imported more than one hundred thousand birds, which are legal imports counted by the system. What is going on? Who is importing those birds? From whence do they come? Are all of those birds quarantined? Are the premises safe? More importantly, are records kept of their final destination?
	The vaccination of birds likely to suffer from avian flu was raised in another place after the Statement was made. The Secretary of State made the point that no authorised vaccine was available. Is any vaccine for birds available? If so, can it be authorised quickly? The Secretary of State stated:
	"If a suitable vaccine were used, birds would have to be vaccinated twice with a minimum three-week separation period. Poultry would be dead then anyway, because there is a seven-week life span."—[Official Report, Commons, 26/10/05; col. 313.]
	I did not follow that. To what was she referring? Perhaps the Minister will tell me further. If, within Europe, there is no vaccine for birds, why has China announced a massive vaccination programme? Can the Minister tell us what they will use and where they have obtained their supplies? It may be that China has cornered the market and that Defra is unable to source vaccines because we acted so late.
	The statutory instrument introducing the emergency regulations came into effect on 28 October. Under it the Secretary of State may declare flu prevention zones, which may cover all or any stated part of the country. But there is no basic rule, such as "within five kilometres of a reported suspect". How will those zones be communicated? For those of us involved with the foot and mouth outbreak, it was widely known that if a case was confirmed on farm X, all the animals up to three kilometres away would be culled. Should there be something similar for avian flu?
	The roles of vets in tackling an outbreak will be critical. The BVA has been closely involved. Its president, Bob McCracken, has given radio interviews stressing that the threat so far is to birds. There is, however, a danger that everyone who works with infected creatures might be at risk. What measures are in place, in preparation and under investigation to protect people who work within the poultry system?
	On 17 October, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who is no longer in his seat, repeated a Statement on avian flu. I know that other noble Lords will speak further on the health issue. But I want to highlight two or three points that he raised. Has a list of key workers been identified for the allocation of any vaccine for humans that is available? When the outbreak was first discovered, what information was sent to primary care units? Have the Government ordered basic supplies, such as gloves, needles and face masks? I understand that France already has 600 million. There are many questions which we could press. Today, we hope that the Minister will be able answer some of them. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have put their names down to speak.

Lord Stratford: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for facilitating this debate. I cannot underline and emphasise enough the importance of the point she made at the beginning of her remarks; that is, the need to do something about the exaggeration and the hysteria that surrounds the current outbreak of avian flu. Much of the blame lies with the absurd stories we have been regaled with in the media, particularly in the tabloid press. One headline stated: "750,000 People in the United Kingdom Likely to Die". I think that was in the Daily Express. In "my soaraway Sun" there was a picture of a flock of geese with the caption, "Ducks of Death". That sort of reporting is irresponsible—it is absurd—and needs to be addressed.
	Of course one has to be aware of the potential dangers, but it is essential to keep the whole thing in proportion. I understand that there are at least 144 strains of avian influenza, and most of the viruses in the wild bird population are benign. Here we are talking about the highly pathogenic flu virus H5N1 which can cause high mortality in domestic poultry flocks, but it is rare in wild birds. Indeed, it appears that H5N1 had never previously been recorded in wild birds before the recent outbreaks in south-east Asia, Russia and the countries bordering the Black Sea. The chances are that the infection originated in domestic poultry and was then transmitted to wild birds.
	What upsets me most about this—I have to try to control myself when I get involved in debates of this sort—is that, along with most ecological disasters, the blame lies essentially with the practices of human beings. We ought to have learnt the lessons by now. If we play dice with nature, there will be a price to pay, and the price is likely to be high. In the case of avian flu the cause has been clearly attributed to the methods of husbandry practised in south-east Asia where dense populations of domestic flocks are allowed to intermix with wild birds, especially water birds.
	The noble Baroness referred to yet another reported death, but to put the danger to human beings in context we have to remember that since 2003 only 60 deaths worldwide have been caused by avian flu. It is pretty tough if you were one of the people who happened to die as a result of avian flu, but when more than 60 people a week are killed in road accidents in this country, we must realise that the whole thing is getting out of proportion. To go from 60 deaths around the world since 2003 to 750,000 deaths in one country, as suggested in the Daily Express, is a statistical leap of quantum proportions. It really is about time that the headline writers on our newspapers behaved more responsibly.
	A further point of concern is the talk of carrying out culls of wild birds. Not only would that be unacceptable and incredibly difficult to implement, but it would also be unlikely to stop the potential spread of the disease. I believe that the danger to human beings is being exaggerated, but the threat to wild birds is real and genuine. It is estimated that between 5 and 10 per cent of the world population of wild bar-headed geese died in the recent outbreak in China. The real sufferers in the current avian flu scare, notwithstanding the people who regrettably and tragically have died, are domestic poultry. The last outbreak of avian flu in Belgium in 2003 resulted in the destruction of 30 million poultry, while there was one human fatality. In the current outbreak many millions of healthy domestic animals are being slaughtered, often in the most appalling circumstances. We have seen pictures of birds being burnt while they are clearly still alive. That is obscene and unacceptable.
	I do not understand what it is about human beings that we are so destructive of animal life. When wild animals affect domestic animals it is, "Let's kill the wild animals". When domestic animals affect human beings then it is, "Let's kill the domestic animals". We never seem ready to blame ourselves for the kinds of scenarios that we can see unfolding in front of us. The carnage is our responsibility and the cause of the problem lies essentially with us. I keep thinking about the BSE crisis, which was entirely man made. If you are going to feed herbivores reprocessed animal protein, how on earth can anyone expect that there will not be a price to pay at some later stage? There was, and millions of healthy animals were destroyed. I said at the time—I have said this in the other place on many occasions—that the programme of destruction owed more to voodoo than it did to science.
	My noble friend the Minister was a little put out by a point I made in a Question recently when I referred to the Daleks in his department. It was certainly true of the old MAFF. "Exterminate them" seems to be their answer to almost everything, whether it is bovine TB, BSE or, potentially now, avian flu. All I can say is, "Thank God his officials do not run the National Health Service". Clearly the answer to the current outbreak lies in improved bio security, primarily in the poultry industry.
	The noble Baroness also referred to the import of wild birds. I believe that the current temporary ban on the import of wild birds should be made permanent. I do not see any reason why we should allow this trade to go on. It is unnecessary, abhorrent and entirely destructive. When you look at the statistics you realise how appalling they are. The European Union is the largest importer of wild caught birds in the world, responsible for 93 per cent of imports of threatened and endangered species. This equates to more than 2.5 million birds imported into the EU between 2000 and 2003. When one adds all the illegal birds—which come in, I might add, under the cover of the legal trade—one realises how venal and destructive of wildlife this trade is.
	It will not come as any great surprise to my friends in the other place, and perhaps to my friends here, that I care more for animals than I do for people. I make that confession mainly because I have found in my experience that people as a species are fairly disgusting. That is something that I will have to live with. No doubt Members will get used to it in the years to come.
	I am willing to bet my pension—which, in view of the previous debate, is probably a good bet to place—that there will not be a human pandemic arising from the current outbreak of avian flu. That is my prediction and that is the bet that I am prepared to make. But, of course, I have the comfort that, were I to be wrong on this occasion, I will not be around to surrender my pension.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for asking whether we are prepared for an outbreak of avian flu. The World Health Organisation has stated that the avian flu virus H5N1,
	"poses a continuing and potentially pandemic threat".
	Our Chief Medical Officer has stated,
	"most experts believe that it is not a question of whether there will be another severe influenza pandemic, but when".
	Everyone must hope that this will not happen, but we must not become complacent. We should all be on the alert.
	I must declare an interest. I have chickens, peacocks and doves at our house. On the estate there are masses of pheasants, grouse, ducks, geese and wild birds of all descriptions—except sparrows, which have disappeared. I have a pony stud and a small riding centre.
	The symptoms of avian influenza include fever, sore throat and cough. The severe cases progress to pneumonia, which is fatal in some individuals. The symptoms are similar to other viral infections and the diagnosis can be confirmed only by laboratory identification of the virus. The avian virus is highly contagious and spreads rapidly among poultry flocks. When we had such a devastating time with foot and mouth disease and we now have a threat of avian flu, why have the Government downgraded the government veterinary investigation centres? Surely at the moment they should be given top priority. I hope that the Minister will give your Lordships an answer today on this matter but, if not, I hope that there will be an explanation as soon as possible.
	Rigorous disinfection of poultry farms is necessary. Recently I asked a farm supplier which disinfectant was best for poultry houses, but my secretary was given the answer that he did not know. I asked a Question for Written Answer to make the need for such disinfectants more widely known, but the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, referred me to Defra's website, where I found a mass of names—about 100 of them. Another agricultural merchant recommended to me a disinfectant called Perax (2), but I have read that the virus is killed by heat and by disinfectants such as formalin and iodine compounds. Perhaps they are all as good as each other.
	The virus can survive at cool temperatures in contaminated manure for at least three months. In water, the virus can survive for up to four days at 22 degrees centigrade. Those figures demonstrate that, without the implementation of strict hygiene measures, the virus may remain as a potential source of infection for months. With regard to the highly pathogenic form of the disease, studies have shown that a single gram of contaminated manure can contain enough virus to infect 1 million birds.
	Should the virus arrive, do the Government recommend vaccination of poultry? I think that it would be wise if basic guidelines went out to people working at ground level, such as gamekeepers, who might find dead birds. They need to be told to wear protective gloves and to double-bag the birds if they take them for examination; or would a Defra technician come and collect them? At what temperature should protective clothing be washed, and should special equipment be used? Is the Minister satisfied that collaboration between the public health and agricultural sectors, the veterinary services and the general public is close enough? The general public need to know.
	An added concern was when I heard that avian influenza could spread to horses. The influenza A virus infects many animals, including pigs, whales, seals, birds, horses and humans, but vets have told me that they believe that the current outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza poses a risk to the horse population in countries where the disease is present. Difficulties of control would arise in creating a vaccine and incorporating it into vaccines with other strains. Also, 70 per cent of the horse population would have to be vaccinated.
	What is the Minister's response to the Times article on 31 October headed "'Mad Cow' rules will halt advance of flu treatment"? Scientists believe that antibodies taken from the blood of recovered flu patients could be used to treat others who develop the disease, providing a third line of defence against a pandemic after vaccines and antiviral drugs, such as Tamiflu. However, the technique could not be used in the UK because of a ban on British blood products in medical therapies introduced seven years ago due to the risk of spreading variant CJD. Surely, as the pharmaceutical industry is world wide, we will have to buy immunoglobulins from countries where there is no risk, should they be needed.
	The H5N1 virus is not the only form of flu which might attack us. Have we enough intensive care and emergency beds, should an epidemic or pandemic emerge? If there are not enough beds for risk people at risk, such as those who have lung problems, will the Government make new money available for the PCTs, which are stretched, and for hospitals, which have already had to cut the number of beds? We should be prepared, and I hope the Minister will answer some of our questions.

Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Byford for putting down this Unstarred Question. In particular, I hope it permits a clarification of the issue of avian flu. As has been said, so much has appeared in the press that it tends to confuse rather than clarify.
	I wish to deal with four areas of risk: the risk to the national poultry flock in the United Kingdom; operator risks; consumer risks; and the risk, eventually, of pandemic flu. With respect to our national poultry flock, avian flu is endemic in, and out of control in, the Far East, particularly in China, and has been so for the past 10 years. Despite culling and controls, open water contaminated with bird droppings and sewage, which is fed to birds and used for humans too, means that it is no wonder that endemic avian flu is rampant in that part of the world.
	What must be done to keep avian flu out of the United Kingdom? First, our surveillance must be vigilant and impeccable. I have often said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Our quarantine system must not be found wanting, as was the case with the recent episode of samples being mixed up and false reports made about imported parrots and finches.
	The possible pathways leading to introduction include migratory birds, the legal and illegal trade in birds brought into the country and bird fairs and shows. What has been done to prepare the country for a ban on captive bird imports, as has been mentioned, increased wild bird surveillance and restrictions on fairs, shows and other gatherings? How secure are the regulations for controlling these?
	Should avian flu gain entrance to this country, prompt action will be necessary. Infected premises will have to be isolated, all birds in those premises will have to be slaughtered, and this will have to be followed by vaccination. Whatever is done, the United Kingdom must act within the European directive regulations which are the basis of our national regulations. I understand that the present EU legislation is out of date and that a new directive is well ahead and much better than the old one. However, there is still work to be done on it, with discussions taking place in the European Union and with Defra, the department dealing with it here. When will these new directives be ready? How will they improve the possible actions to be taken in the United Kingdom?
	On the risk to operators, we know that human infection with the H5N1 virus in endemic countries such as China is associated with very close contact with faeces, blood, entrails and carcases. Should there be a need to cull birds if the virus enters this country, a large number of domestic poultry may well have to be slaughtered.What plans are there to safeguard the health and welfare of the personnel concerned?
	With respect to the risk to the consumer via the food chain, provided that the food is cooked and eggs are boiled adequately, there is little danger. However, as has been mentioned in this debate, it is possible to transmit the avian flu virus to mammals. For example, zoo tigers have been fed infected chicken meat and have died as a result. However, there is no risk to humans provided that the food is adequately cooked.
	On the human health issue and the infection of humans with the avian flu virus H5N1, human infection is rare. Considering the millions of birds that have been infected and have died in the Far East—something in the order of 700 million—only a handful of human cases—160—have become clinically ill and a proportion of those—60 or so—have died. When one considers the numbers, very close contact indeed is necessary between infected birds and humans. However, the danger lies in the H5N1 virus acquiring highly infectious properties through either re-assortment or modification of its genome and/or re-assortment along with the human influenza virus. Hence, it is important to do all that we can to control avian flu at its origin. It is important to nip outbreaks in the bud, as early as possible. That may not be possible in Asia, because of the present nature of poultry keeping and the difficulty in getting to remote parts of that continent, but in Europe it may well be a different matter. What is being done in Europe?
	The organisation that could and should be in the lead is the FAO—the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations in Rome. However, it is poorly funded and more funding is necessary not only for the Far East, but for countries in Eastern Europe where the animal health control infrastructure needs strengthening. I hope that the Government will give assistance to the FAO not only for that purpose, but to strengthen the animal health efforts in these eastern countries.

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: My Lords, I am similarly grateful to the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity today to talk about these issues. In July this year, a group of my senior team in the diocese spent four days in Romania. We were the guests of the Orthodox Church in the Diocese of Iash and as part of our visit we spent a day in the rural communities seeing something of the ministry of the Orthodox Church. Once you are out of the major towns in Romania, you become very conscious of how underdeveloped are parts of eastern Europe. Farming is by horse and cart without exception and with heavy use of human labour. Everywhere you go, down unmade streets in the villages, people have their own means of producing food. Across the road, there are flocks of ducks everywhere you go. It reminded me of China where the high dependency by the rural poor on chickens and ducks is manifest wherever you go.
	It is all very well and no doubt right and proper for the EC to start talking about moving poultry indoors. In Romania, only the winter cold will achieve that. There is not a ghost of a chance of the sort of controls that we think of over here being applied there. Poor rural communities are already exposed to the problems of disease, and the problems of managing in the face of that threat are located not only in south-east Asia but on our doorsteps in Europe.
	No one is helped by panic responses, and our own farming community needs protection from public anxiety. I very much support the remarks recently made about the media. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will take on board the lessons of the foot and mouth crisis in 2001; public anxiety led by the media can lead to the wrong responses and, in this case, to a mass cull of birds that is neither necessary nor effective. The steps already being taken and any proposed for the future will work much better if they are rooted in a process of mutual trust and consensus, and we prepare for that by bringing the parties together and agreeing how we are to handle these matters.
	When we consider the possibility of the disease mutating and being spread from person to person, leading to another major flu pandemic, we similarly need to avoid panic and be properly prepared. If we are to be properly prepared, it is vital that there is transparency from the start and that people are told the truth. I suspect that the truth is that while we cannot know how the disease will develop, whether it will mutate and in what way, we need to be prepared for a pandemic. Every person and household will need to know in advance what they can do to minimise the impact should such a pandemic take hold on our world. What preparatory material are the Government preparing for the households of our country so that they may be properly prepared?
	We must not pretend that any of this will be easy. I understand that the Government's own estimate is that, if we have a pandemic, 50,000 people are likely to die as a result. That, I assume, is on the assumption that the vaccination is effective and widespread. When you start to think of the implications, you can begin to see the challenge—from the impact on residential homes for the elderly through to the loss of the voluntary commitment to community life and community building, which is made predominantly in our society by those over the age of 60 and in retirement. Who will deliver meals-on-wheels and do the lunch club, or the structured visiting of the sick and isolated? The people on the receiving end are not only the elderly themselves; often the people offering the services are elderly.
	Will the funeral services be able to cope? Standing here as a Bishop, I want to know whether the clergy and religious leaders who have to bear the brunt of this ministry and the ministry of comfort to those who have lost loved ones will be acknowledged and supported. The excellent report prepared by the NHS somehow draws to a halt in front of that issue. On page 32, it refers to the impact on such services as,
	"death registration and funeral directors will have an increased work load".
	I believe that some of my clergy will have an increased work load—and I know that we have been in correspondence about the importance of religious leaders and local clergy being included in the preparations. After a glance at the report, I find that it does not make enough mention of voluntary organisations in our community; we need to do more on that.
	The Minister will know of our concerns in these areas. I know that my noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell has written to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and I am sure that he will get a positive response.
	I know from my time in Sheffield, when we suffered the Hillsborough football disaster, the stress on clergy seeking to offer help and support to people at a time of great community stress. The clergy of Sheffield, without being asked to do so, rallied to the football ground and were often the first there to bring help alongside the professionals who sought to bring professional help. In the case of avian flu, that will be exhausting—and that is on the assumption that the clergy do not themselves contract the disease. What happens if two or three of my clergy go down with the disease at one and the same time as the demand on funeral services goes up? These are important issues that need to be thought through.
	The medical and scientific problem is the presenting problem, but the social and human consequences are the real issue here, as it is with our farmers, and those who raise chickens and produce our eggs and local produce. We have to deal with the science of the disease, but it is how we deal with the effects on people that is the most important question. I am sure we are all agreed that panic will lead to the wrong responses. Even in the face of popular anxiety, those of us who are leaders in the community need to hold our nerve and be well prepared.
	These events remind us once again that it is a myth that we are in control of our destiny. The test of our faith and our values lies not in control, but in the quality of our response. Avian flu will test that once again.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, I join other noble Lords to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for her opening remarks in this important debate, and for her thoroughly researched and learned opening speech, which was helpful in starting us off. I must declare an interest of sorts because I am on the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which is currently looking at the issue of avian flu. Our report will be out before Christmas. I hope that none of my remarks will be seen in any way to pre-empt that report, but that they resonate with the report that we will eventually produce.
	I will focus my remarks principally on thinking the unthinkable, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford has already touched on, and on the aspect of research, which has not been adequately covered in any of the contingency plans. The third area is international co-operation and collaboration.
	There is a lot of talk about vaccination, antivirals and the focus on prevention, and the focus in agriculture. But when it does happen, panic will certainly set in, and I want to ask the Government specifically how they are going to cope and what plans are in place. For instance, when there is panic about anything we now see our supermarket shelves raided. There is a national shortage of HGV drivers. As our food depots are now so centralised, is there any plan in place to ask the big high-profit supermarket chains—I hesitate to name names because it is like advertising, but I am thinking of Sainsbury, Waitrose, Tesco, Asda and so on—to agree to pool their resources and send out goods from the nearest distribution centre to all branches, so that people get food from their nearest centre, irrespective of the label and the profit in such a situation?
	What about power infrastructure? We are reliant on mobile phone networks as a way of communicating. It was evident in the disaster in New Orleans that text messages from people to say they were safe were very important. If the power goes down, however, the mobile network lines go down quickly, so what are the backup systems within those? What has been done to get all the providers to work closely together?
	We will be reliant on broadcasting, as we are already. I agree with the comments already made that the media are talking as if there is an inexorable march across Europe of human avian flu, which is not the case at the moment. Monitoring is in place, and it needs to be done carefully. It is not responsible to have exaggerated reporting, as we have at the moment.
	I want to turn to research. As well as research into prevention, and talk of vaccines, we need to be doing the research now, immediately, into new vaccine production using things such as cell lines, so vaccine can be produced rapidly rather than with the lag period that there is with traditional vaccine production methods—which are also, ironically, based on eggs, where the vaccine is grown.
	When—and I do say when—the pandemic strikes, we need to have everything in place and be ready to go.
	There will be no time to draw up research protocols, consult ethics committees, apply for informed consent and so on. If we do not have the protocols already in place to collect all the data that we need, we will miss an incredibly important opportunity in terms of advancing our understanding of the disease. We will also potentially miss an enormous opportunity to save lives. The way that we manage cases in the first days of a pandemic should inform our thinking and knowledge on how we manage cases even a week later. But unless we systematically collect the data, we will not have a clue. We do not know whether Oseltamivir should be given within the first 48 hours or the first six hours of symptoms developing. We do not know whether it should be given in conjunction with something else such as Amantadine to obtain a dual antiviral effect. The only way we shall know that is through having a randomised control trial which is ready to roll out on day one.
	We must learn from the past. The MRC studies into childhood leukaemia did just that. Every child with leukaemia was entered into a study. Due to the systematic nature of those trials the mortality rate has been completely turned round from a massive rate to a small number of children now dying.
	Some of the regulation surrounding clinical trials will have to be abandoned if the Government do not act until the pandemic has arrived, or a system needs to be put in place to prepare everything beforehand. We will not be able to conduct random trials on a one-by-one basis; we need to consider cluster randomisation. For example, one city will get one system, another city will be managed differently and the data will be compared. We may be able to save thousands of lives in the second and third weeks if we use all the data obtained in the first week.
	In conclusion, I refer to the international community. We have already heard about poverty and the dependence of people on subsistence farming. If we expect poor countries to take radical preventive measures which will damage their economies hugely, there must be international support from the wealthier nations so that poor countries are not penalised for responsibly treating and isolating outbreaks. There has to be a system in place through the World Bank to support nations' efforts so that we operate as a global community facing a global threat.

Lord Chan: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for asking Her Majesty's Government whether adequate safeguards are in place to deal with a potential outbreak of avian flu.
	The disease, which has attracted wide public attention through the media, has caused confusion, as other noble Lords have mentioned. There are clearly two separate issues involved in avian flu. First, there is an avian flu epidemic of the H5N1 strain in east and south-east Asia. It has now spread to Russia and Kazakhstan. Infected birds have also been identified here. Secondly, the World Health Organisation has advised countries on the preparations necessary to prepare for an influenza pandemic. The latest UK influenza pandemic contingency plan of October 2005 states that the widespread occurrence and continued spread of a highly pathogenic avian (bird) influenza virus H5N1 in poultry in south-east Asia since 2003 has increased concern that this could provide the seedbed for the emergence of a new human influenza virus with pandemic potential.
	I suppose that newspapers would like to expand such reports in portraying what they consider is a likely future scenario. However, at the moment such a scenario is fictional.
	There is no doubt that H5N1 is a virulent infection of birds that has spread. As the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, said, avian flu is nothing new. China has had recurrent epidemics over 10 years, but it is only since the resurgence of avian flu with H5N1 in 2003 that the spread has been so rapid and that there have been a small number of human deaths. Today, there are 70 proven cases of deaths from the avian flu virus H5N1, and all of them have occurred in China and the south-east Asian countries of Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia.
	Currently, poultry are susceptible to infection by avian flu; we know that from all the experiences of south-east Asian countries. Serious effects would occur on poultry farming if avian flu were to infect our national stock of birds. I look forward to the Minister telling us what will be done and what plans there are for handling such a possibility. I have found at least two documents on pandemic flu, but I have not found any documents on avian flu advice for poultry farmers of the type that have been produced for the NHS.
	It has also been said that a vaccine has been manufactured for use in poultry in China. I was in China two weeks ago and yes, it is true that they have manufactured a vaccine. However, the problem is that the vaccine takes three weeks to produce any immunity, and every bird has to be injected individually. It will be an impossibly long and laborious process for the team that is going to vaccinate the birds. So although the vaccine has been manufactured and is being used and publicised, it is unlikely that the current vaccine would have any impact or use for us here.
	I will now consider the aspects of human infection and the prospect of an influenza pandemic of H5N1. The Department of Health should be congratulated for making detailed plans, first in March and then again in October using WHO recommendations on how to deal with the pandemic. Using statistics, since the last influenza pandemic was from Hong Kong in 1968, it is about time that another should occur in Europe. That is good planning and it should not cause unnecessary fear and alarm in the public—although unfortunately it has. The President of China on his visit here last week voiced his concern about avian flu and asked for our Government's help on research and co-operation on the public health effects of avian flu. There is no doubt that this is an area where we hope that the Government will join in co-operation.
	The report on the first three proven cases of human avian flu from China was in the Times this morning. They were two siblings and another girl from another province in China. All three of them apparently had H5N1 identified in their secretions. Of the two siblings, the girl died but her brother survived although they both had the same illness.
	That seems to be good news, if it is true, because it might lead to work on some way of having immunoglobulins or even a vaccine that might be produced for human use.
	I come back to our own preparations for pandemic flu. Could there be better information for the public than the large tomes produced? In the SARS epidemic, there was tremendous confusion, particularly among the Chinese community, when people stopped going to Chinese restaurants. They then tuned in to Hong Kong television and saw that everyone was wearing facemasks, so they adopted the same procedure here and started telling people that they should not go to public places, not even churches. I hope that, to avoid such confusion, we would produce a user-friendly information sheet.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I warmly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for introducing the debate, which has been wide-ranging. I intend to touch on only those issues for which Defra is responsible, because I do not feel that I can really touch on the health issues. I want to cover three areas. The debate is particularly timely because, two days ago, Defra published its epidemiology report on the avian influenza outbreak in quarantine, which raises a number of issues about our biosecurity. A wider issue was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stratford—why we are importing wild birds at all. I concur with him that we should not be. Indeed, I have tabled an amendment to the NERC Bill to that effect.
	I shall go back to the detail of the epidemiology report. I realise that the Minister will not be able to answer all the questions in the time available, but I need to put at least some of them on record. The report raises a large number of questions, about both the principles of importing wild birds and the state of our quarantine system. The mortality in the black-header caique population was notably high—100 per cent—but that was not attributed to any reason. What proportion of legally imported wild birds normally die in quarantine? Are welfare standards really adequate when so many birds can die for no apparent reason? That is a rhetorical question; it clearly is not, because the report goes on to state: "The Mesias", a different species,
	"from Taiwan, also exhibited a notable mortality. This was attributed to nutritional/dietary problems".
	The birds were apparently not being fed correctly.
	I turn to some issues around biosecurity. For example, there were four sentinel chickens, which is a normal way of testing for disease. They were all free of the disease when 53 other birds may have died from it. Does that suggest that the sentinel system is not a reliable safeguard? Another noble Lord raised the habit of tissue pooling in virological testing so that it is impossible to tell from which bird the disease came. That is a serious matter, made more serious by the fact that some birds appear to have been put in the deep freeze afterwards while some were incinerated. On what basis are decisions made on which dead birds will be incinerated and which frozen for testing? If birds simply appear to have died—that is what the epidemiology report says—but only a few have been frozen and the rest incinerated, it will be impossible to go back and have a second look at any of the tissues.
	Considering the uncertainty with which the report gives dates for deaths and incinerations, is there any possibility that some of the birds were not burnt at all, but sold before the end of the quarantine period?
	I take on board other noble Lords' comments about not raising the temperature on this issue, but this report raises some questions, particularly given that much of the evidence has been burned.
	I turn now to issues relating to our poultry farmers. In this country we raise poultry under much higher welfare conditions than in the rest of the world. Our poultry keepers look to the Government to support the type of conditions that they are trying to encourage. Therefore, it is fair that at times such as these the Government should offer poultry keepers very clear guidance—the noble Lord, Lord Chan, asked if there was any guidance available to them. I have received several queries from farmers that are basic and surprising, because, for example, I understand that they have not received any guidance regarding compensation levels during an outbreak. There is a lesson here from the foot and mouth outbreak: farmers will be paid compensation for healthy birds that are slaughtered, but the foot and mouth outbreak demonstrated that indirect losses were great. There is no intention to pay for consequential losses, but losses may arise simply from being in a surveillance area or a restricted zone. There is also the question of organic status regarding birds that are shut indoors for a considerable time.
	The Government have stated that they will not finance secondary cleansing. However, if a farmer suffers an outbreak on his farm, his flock will be restricted, with the litter on which it lies, to the farm building. It will stay there for 21 days. The compost that results will then be required to be escorted by a vet to incineration. Is that regulation a sensible use of veterinary time? Of course, biosecurity needs to be ensured, but, surely, we do not need a vet to accompany dead animals and their litter—he should concern himself with the living animals and ensuring that the disease has not spread. The poultry industry is valued at some £1,674 million. We should take seriously our responsibility to support it in every possible way.
	Finally, the Minister and the Government have made many statements about the poultry industry in which they always refer to chickens. But elsewhere in their literature they state that waterfowl are particularly vulnerable. Can the Minister say anything about regulations that may specifically refer to ducks and geese?

The Duke of Montrose: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lady Byford on this important and timely debate. The egg industry alone in this country has a turnover of some £570 million and 28 million birds produce within a whisker of 9 billion eggs—and that is only one section of the poultry industry. That industry is a considerable consumer of home-grown cereals at a time when that sector of farming is in considerable difficulty.
	Perhaps I may respond to a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Chan: I talked to a major Scottish poultry producer who seemed satisfied with the communications that he was receiving from Government, but perhaps he is in better communication with the Government than others. I must declare my own interest in farming, although it is not in poultry.
	The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, drew our attention to a new EU directive that is being prepared. I presume that, given our current national position in the European Union, we will have a fairly major part in its drafting. What new measures do the Government feel that should include? I also understand from a statement by the Minister in the other place that the Government have plans to carry out a contingency exercise on avian influenza outbreaks next June. Following the question put by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, will it contain measures for the general population and what is the rationale of choosing that date? Do they expect to be able to include all the provisions of the new EU directive?
	It appears that we are susceptible to three possible routes of infection into this country: wild bird migration, wild bird trade and the domestic poultry trade. The noble Lord, Lord Stratford, expressed some of the passion that many of us feel about the dangers that this country faces from the importation of animal diseases. I was interested to see that he is another one who subscribes to the feelings of the late Reginald Heber, who said that we live in a world where all of nature pleases and only man is vile.
	We are told that the threat from a major wild bird migration is almost over for the present season. I hope that the Government will not give up on their surveillance of wild bird deaths, as it seems that currently we have very little information on what diseases, if any, the current flow of migrants might be carrying. That might prove to be important if we are required to trace back an outbreak of something rather more dangerous.
	On trade and the infections it brings, proper and adequate quarantine provision is obviously essential. I was interested to learn that the Government are currently carrying out a review of quarantine procedures. That topic, which is of much concern to us all, was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton. Was the current review triggered by the latest incident, or is there a provision to update periodically the regulations and, if so, when was that last carried out? It is useful to know that quarantine premises are required to obtain an annual licence and are subject to periodic inspection. In those circumstances, one has to ask whether that is enough.
	If we are still correct in believing that wild birds are capable of transmitting dangerous strains of avian influenza to domesticated stock—I gather there is a slight question mark over that at the moment—it would appear that the most likely route of transmission would be from the trade in wild birds, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, referred. Almost by definition these are birds whose health status is not traceable over a very long period. That does not mean that it is totally necessary to try to stop the trade altogether, but it means that it cannot be seen as a business that should be allowed to operate with light-touch regulation.
	It seems that certain areas could be considered in the current review of quarantine procedures. I hope it will not be seen as out of place for me to make my own suggestions, because in no way am I an expert in such matters. I was interested to learn that the Essex premises, where the recent incident occurred, were regarded as having been vacant from 9 March until 16 September and that they had been inspected within the past few months. Did that inspection coincide with the premises being empty and was the report of the inspection fully satisfactory? A point that the review might like to consider is that, as with other infectious disease outbreaks, it might be better if periods used for carrying out disinfection were subject to official notification and random inspection.
	Secondly, what is the strength of the ruling currently employed which says that all deaths in quarantine should be subject to testing? Is there a time limit by when the tests should be completed? Even if carcases are stored in a refrigerator, by when should they be tested? I am led to believe that even in cold conditions, a virus such as H5N1 deteriorates. Can the negative samples taken from the fridge in Essex be regarded as conclusive?
	My third point is that some value is put on the presence of sentinel birds. In these wild bird quarantine centres, would it not be an idea to have more than one species of sentinel bird? As well as having chickens, perhaps there could be ducks.
	An area of research that was not touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, is the question of testing for this disease. It is good news that our State Veterinary Service is now working on a test that it hopes will reduce the time for an initial result from three days to three hours. Has the Minister anything to tell the House about how long that research has been going on and whether there is any likelihood of bringing it to a rapid conclusion?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for giving us the chance to debate this issue in the House tonight. Avian influenza is currently a high-profile topic with the public and it is right that the House should discuss it at this time. Some important and significant points have been made and questions have been asked. I cannot possibly answer them all. It would be impossible to do that within the time available. I shall try to answer what I can and I will write to noble Lords if I cannot answer their questions tonight. By way of example, in the first part of her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked detailed questions about contingency plans. I would not be doing justice to her speech if I tried to answer her this evening, but I will write to her.
	I think it is best if I concentrate on telling the House where the Government believe we are at this time. Indeed, that is what the noble Baroness asked in her question. The first thing is that I remind the House that we do not have an outbreak of high pathogenic avian influenza in this country. The Government continue to monitor closely the risk of such an outbreak in the United Kingdom, and regularly reassess, update and publish their qualitative risk assessment. Indeed, many noble Lords will have seen the most recent QRA, which was made public a week or two ago. The risk of further geographical spread is assessed as high. In that light, the likelihood of the imminent introduction of H5N1 to the UK is assessed as increased, but still low.
	We continue to work closely with the European Union. This led to the European Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health agreeing to a European Union-wide ban on the importation of wild birds on a temporary basis. It was extended yesterday to 31 January 2006. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs remain vigilant on the big issue of the illegal trade or movement of birds. In addition to this, domestic legislation to implement the Commission decision restricting bird shows, fairs and markets came into force in England, Scotland and Wales on 28 October. Today, we have announced advice on allowing pigeon shows to go ahead under licence. We are also developing appropriate provisions to license pigeon racing. This legislation will help to prevent the spread of the avian influenza virus in the event of an outbreak.
	We are working closely with key stakeholders to determine the policy, to design and deliver surveillance arrangements and to agree and issue guidance. Information on issues such as biosecurity and worker protection—the noble Baroness asked about these matters—has been made widely available. With the addition of interested parties we are currently developing a central poultry register to gather essential information about poultry species held on commercial properties for the purposes of risk assessment and the prevention and control of disease. This database will be another safeguard to help identify an outbreak and also to limit its spread. We are continuing our programme of surveillance in wild birds.
	While evidence for the influence of migratory wild birds remains circumstantial, the Government are committed to increase levels of surveillance for possible presence of avian influenza virus. We are working with experts and ornithologists, such as staff at wetlands centres, and have published information regarding all this on the Defra website, which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, was good enough to mention.
	The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talked about the international community and what we were doing. We are leading the fight to help the international community to eradicate avian influenza. Recently, we sent a delegation to a meeting hosted in the United States. As holders of the EU presidency, the United Kingdom has co-ordinated views and concerns from all European member states. Another delegation has been sent to Geneva for the WHO/FAO/OIE partners meeting. On a more practical note, we have also sent experts to Romania to help their response to avian influenza. The right reverend Prelate's point is well taken about poultry in that country.
	Aside from the ban on the importation of wild birds, we have provided additional funding in excess of £6 million further to enhance our disease prevention programme, which includes import controls and quarantine procedures. In passing, I tell the noble Baroness that active research is going on—I am sure that she knows that—and we believe that we, in collaboration with other countries, are in the forefront of vaccination development of a new pandemic flu vaccine. But I will write to her at greater length about that.
	The Government have prepared a contingency plan that will come into effect in the event of an outbreak of avian influenza in this country. It is the same plan as was used successfully to manage the outbreak of Newcastle disease earlier this year. It focuses on the early detection of avian influenza and rapid action to contain and control it in the event of an outbreak.
	The contingency plan is routinely checked and tested in local exercises run by the State Veterinary Service, involving key operational partners when it is appropriate to do so. A national scale exercise thoroughly to test this plan is planned for early next year as the culmination of a number of smaller table-top exercises that began in October this year. Separate to that, a strategic level table-top exercise was held on 31 October involving senior officials from a number of government departments and agencies, in order to test the strategic level response arrangements and the communications strategy.
	In the unlikely event of an outbreak of avian flu occurring before there is a supply of vaccine available, we have a substantial stockpile of the antiviral Tamiflu that will be given to all those at risk of infection. We have heard a lot about the recent case of avian influenza in a quarantine centre in Essex. I must say that I have to be cautious about what I say concerning that. It is quite right that the epidemiological report has now been published and that comment was made about it. I still need to be cautious about what I say. This shows, I would argue, that in fact the quarantine procedures were effective in this case because they gave early warning in preventing H5N1 entering the country, and the country remains free of the disease.
	However, we want to continue to examine ways to improve this system, and a general review of our quarantine procedures and arrangements was announced in October. That matter was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, the noble Duke and many others. The review is being chaired by Professor Nigel Dimmock, the Emeritus Professor of Virology at Warwick University. Indeed, the results of the epidemiological report that I have just referred to will be fed into this important inquiry that is going on into quarantine policy.
	Let me try and deal with some of the questions I was asked. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, accused us of lacking urgency. I have to remind her that the Government have a duty to take these issues very seriously; and we do. But we also have to make sure that we do not cause unnecessary alarm at the wrong time.
	Government is about balance and trying to get it right. The noble Baroness can say that we have got the balance wrong here, if she wants to; but I argue strongly that we have it right. Regular risk assessments have been taking place. A contingency plan has been in place since July. That was fully tested with the Newcastle disease outbreak. It is updated and fully prepared. Bans need to be proportionate and always based on risk.
	The noble Baroness and other noble Lords mentioned vaccination and the Chinese statement—because that is what it is at present—concerning vaccination. The noble Lord, Lord Chan, was very interesting on that point. There are no vaccines yet in the EU with marketing authorisation. Therefore, we would not be allowed to consume the products of vaccinated poultry. That is a commercial decision for the marketing authorities. However, it is right to point out that a number of factors concerning current vaccines that make them unsuitable as a single disease control measure. There is the fact that every bird would have to be injected and that it can take three weeks to develop immunity. That does not necessarily stop the bird becoming infected and spreading the virus, even though it has been vaccinated. The vaccine can mask signs of disease, which would be very difficult. So there are arguments to be had about vaccination.
	I was asked about the zones. The State Veterinary Service and local authorities work together to publicise locally and visit premises. Zone sizes are set out and are consistent with all animal disease control policy. I was asked about numbers. I can tell the noble Baroness that between 1 January and 9 November this year, a total of 53,155 wild birds were imported into the UK.
	I tell my noble friend Lord Stratford that it is not government policy to cull wild birds. Our policy is to control disease in domestic poultry and to continue to increase biosecurity.
	I was asked about key workers. I will write to the noble Baroness with more detail about that. The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, and the noble Duke mentioned the new directive. We hope to have political agreement by the end of this year to be implemented shortly after that which will enhance the current controls. Controls on low pathogenic AI, controls and surveillance of pigs in particular and regional and national movement restrictions will all be part of the thinking that goes into the new directive.
	I have already run out of time. Finally, the right reverend Prelate asked what instructions have been given to households to prepare for any future pandemic. We have prepared publicity material for the public on avoiding the risks of infection and caring for sick family members and for general practitioners. It will be issued if needed; it has not been issued at present. The Secretary of State for Health has published her pandemic contingency plan and guidance.
	I end by again thanking the noble Baroness for raising the subject today. It has been a short but worthwhile debate. I am sorry that I have not been able to say more in the course of my answer.

House adjourned at twenty-four minutes past six o'clock.